The Yale Law Journal

Banking Law

Forum

Brandeisian Banking

Kathryn Judge

For much of the twentieth century, banking law used an array of carrots and sticks to create a banking system that was both very stable and highly decentralized. This history is key to understanding how banking law has, and could again, serve Brandeisian aims. 

 

Essay

Banking and Antitrust

Saule T. Omarova & Graham S. Steele

This Essay seeks to recover the deeply rooted connection between U.S. banking law and antitrust. It reconceptualizes banking law as a sector-specific antimonopoly regime that imposes multiple structural constraints on publicly subsidized banks’ ability to abuse their power over the supply and alloca…

Note

Prosecuting Corporate Crime when Firms Are Too Big to Jail: Investigation, Deterrence, and Judicial Review

Nick Werle

Some corporations have become so large or so systemically important that the government cannot credibly threaten efficient criminal sanctions. This Note presents a microeconomic model of corporate criminal prosecution for Too-Big-to-Jail businesses and offers several prosecutorial reforms to help ho…

Note

Dodd-Frank Is a Pigouvian Regulation

Aaron M. Levine & Joshua C. Macey

Although commentators have criticized Dodd-Frank for not solving the problem of "too big to fail" banks, this Note identifies one promising feature of the law. As a "Pigouvian regulation," Dodd-Frank imposed compliance costs that incentivized banks to divest risky assets while providing regulators t…