The Limits of Interest: Moral economy and public engagement in the regulation of derivatives in the United States

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ziegler, J. Nicholas; Posch, Konrad; Nath, Thomas
• 署名单位: Brown University; University of California System; University of California Berkeley; University of San Francisco; University of Iowa; Brown University; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
• 刊物名称: REGULATION & GOVERNANCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1748-5983
• DOI: 10.1111/rego.12579
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 1309-1331
• 关键词: financial reform; Dodd-Frank; POLITICS

摘要

This article analyzes the public comments submitted to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), 2010-2014, in response to proposed rules for implementing the Dodd-Frank reforms. By addressing a fine-grained typology of commenting organizations to a topic model of the combined comments, we illuminate a new pattern of public engagement in financial regulation. Contrary to the economic concept of regulatory capture, our data show no sharp divide between the suppliers of complex derivatives (the dealer banks) and their customers in other parts of the finance industry. In keeping with the general concept of financialization-but contrary to its strongest versions-our data show distinctly delimited evidence of a convergence between the banks and other sectors. Instead of either capture or all-embracing financialization, the comments submitted to the CFTC display an overriding opposition in the justifications used by commenters to explain their preferences. Commenters from the financial services and allied sectors consistently adopt a language of technical legitimation. Commenters in agriculture, livestock, retail energy, and many nonmarket organizations adopt a language of moral justification. The clarity of the divide between these two idioms indicates that the underlying purposes of new financial instruments are now being questioned. Even in the realm of esoteric financial instruments such as derivatives, the moral economy of market competition is once again subject to debate among market participants as well as observers.