News and Commentary
To become private again, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will have to raise $180 billion in capital. A hefty requirement meant to ensure the pair stay financially viable after they leave conservatorship.
Because of risk-weighting, even a simple idea like capital requirements can have very different implementations. This post explored cross country comparisons and concludes that US requirements are more stringent than they may first appear.
The recently approved merger of BB&T and SunTrust would be the largest bank merger since the financial crisis.
New Research
A new article in the NBER argues that financial instability impairs the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. That means that at the times when the economy is most imperiled the Fed is least able to respond.