New Paper: Would a Stricter Fed Policy and Financial Regulation Have Averted the Financial Crisis?

Posted by Cato Editors

Many commentators have argued that if the Federal Reserve had followed a stricter monetary policy earlier this decade when the housing bubble was forming, and if Congress had not deregulated banking but had imposed tighter financial standards, the housing boom and bust—and the subsequent financial crisis and recession—would have been averted.

In a new study, Cato scholars Jagadeesh Gokhale and Peter Van Doren investigate those claims and dispute them.