William K. Black
William K. Black is an Associate Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a former senior financial regulator. He is a white-collar criminologist. He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He taught previously at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and at Santa Clara University, where he was also the distinguished scholar in residence for insurance law and a visiting scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. He was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and General Counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and Senior Deputy Chief Counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement. He is the author of the book The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One (University of Texas Press 2005). Black developed the concept “control fraud” – frauds in which the leader uses the entity as a “weapon.” Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime combined and kill and maim thousands. He helped the World Bank develop anti-corruption initiatives, served as an expert for OFHEO in its enforcement action against Fannie Mae’s CEO, assisted Icelandic and French leaders responding to their financial crises, and addressed members of the UN General Assembly on policies needed to reduce the risk of future financial crises. Black has testified before Congress five times about the financial crisis.
Regulatory Capture
Regulatory Capture is Not “Inevitable”
“Capture” has become a self-fulfilling prophecy of economists who turn their students into sure-to-fail regulators.
A Wall Street Journal editorial asserted the “inevitability” of...
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Money in Politics
Healthcare Companies Spent More on Lobbying Than Any Other Industry Last Year
Threatened by regulated price caps from congress, the pharmaceutical industry spent nearly $390 million on lobbying in 2021 according to new data...
Antitrust and Competition
Antitrust and Rule by Judges
The early-1980s Posner-Stigler memorandum to incoming president Reagan’s transition team is interesting for a host of reasons, but most of all in...
Antitrust and Competition
Should the European Union Require Tech Firms to Adopt a Common Charger?
According to a new European Commission directive expected to be approved in the next few months, tech firms will have to use...
News
Chart of the Week: Economists Don’t Think Congress Should Make Price Gouging Illegal
Most economists disagree with a new bill in the US that would set limits on "unconscionably excessive prices," according to a recent...
Antitrust and Competition
Neoliberal Economists Are Giving Biden Bad Advice on Inflation
To spare the economy from the pain of further interest rate hikes, the President should aggressively pursue anticompetitive conduct by companies in...
Antitrust and Competition
How Would the Big Tech Self-Preferencing Bill Affect Users?
The Senate looks to be nearing a vote on the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which would prohibit gatekeeping digital platforms...
News
New eBook Revisits George Stigler’s Theory of Regulatory Capture 50 Years Later
To mark the 50-year anniversary of George Stigler’s seminal piece, “The Theory of Economic Regulation” we are publishing a new eBook examining...