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Are Bad Times Good News for the Securities and Exchange Commission?

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  • Tim Lohse
  • Christian Thomann

Abstract

There exists a considerable debate in the literature investigating how stock market upswings or downswings impact financial market regulation. The present paper contributes to this literature and investigates whether financial market regulation follows a regulative cycle: does regulation, and consequently investor protection, increase as a result of a stock market downturn (as argued by, e.g., Zingales (2009)) or – contrary to the regulative cycle hypothesis – as a result of an upswing (as claimed by Povel (2007), or Hertzberg (2003)) Following Jackson and Roe (2009), we use funding data on the world’s most important financial market regulator, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as a proxy for the politically desired degree of regulation. We apply time series analysis. Using more than 60 years of data, we show that the SEC’s funding follows a regulative cycle: A weak stock market results in increased resources for the SEC. A strong stock market results in reduced resources. Our findings underline the downside of regulation as the regulative cycle amplifies the technical procyclicality inherent in regulation.

Suggested Citation

  • Tim Lohse & Christian Thomann, 2014. "Are Bad Times Good News for the Securities and Exchange Commission?," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2014-11, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    • Handle: RePEc:mpi:wpaper:tax-mpg-rps-2014-11
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Luigi Zingales, 2009. "The Future of Securities Regulation," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(2), pages 391-425, May.
    2. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2006. "What Works in Securities Laws?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 1-32, February.
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    6. Lohse, Tim & Pascalau, Razvan & Thomann, Christian, 2014. "Public enforcement of securities market rules: Resource-based evidence from the Securities and Exchange Commission," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 197-212.
    7. Efraim Benmelech & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 2010. "The Political Economy of Financial Regulation: Evidence from U.S. State Usury Laws in the 19th Century," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(3), pages 1029-1073, June.
    8. Lohse, Tim & Pascalau, Razvan & Thomann, Christian, 2014. "Public Enforcement of Securities Market Rules: Resource-based evidence from the Securities Exchange Commission," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 364, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    9. Glenn Boyle & Richard Meade, 2008. "Intra-country regulation of share markets: does one size fit all?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 151-165, April.
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    12. Iljoong Kim, 2008. "Securities laws ‘facilitating’ private enforcement," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 17-38, February.
    13. Paul Povel & Rajdeep Singh & Andrew Winton, 2007. "Booms, Busts, and Fraud," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(4), pages 1219-1254.
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    Cited by:

    1. Lohse, Tim & Pascalau, Razvan & Thomann, Christian, 2014. "Public enforcement of securities market rules: Resource-based evidence from the Securities and Exchange Commission," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 197-212.
    2. Giuseppe Vita & Livio Ferrante, 2021. "Is legislation grease or sand to economic growth? An econometric analysis using data from Italian regions before and after the 2008 crisis," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 541-561, June.
    3. Anand, Anita & Green, Andrew, 2018. "Securities settlements as examples of crisis-driven regulation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 41-57.
    4. Evgeni Peev, 2015. "Institutions, economic liberalization and firm growth: evidence from European transition economies," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 149-174, August.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial Regulation; Procyclicality; Securities and Exchange Commission; Stock Market;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models

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