CEI has fought excessive regulation in the financial sector from laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank. We have scored major bipartisan victories for deregulation. These include the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, signed by President Obama in 2012, that lifted or relaxed some of the biggest burdens preventing small and midsize firms from raising capital and going public; and the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, signed by President Trump in 2018, that lifted some of Dodd-Frank’s crushing burden on community banks and credit unions. We continue to fight to remove regulatory barriers that limit choices and increase costs for entrepreneurs, investors, and consumers.
Banking and Finance Issue Areas
Featured Posts
Citation
Newsom Looks To Extend Carbon Cap Policy, Fund Rail Boondoggle As Possible Gas Crisis Looms
Daily Caller cited CEI’s expert on gas prices “California refining capacity is dying, it is dwindling,” Marlo Lewis Jr., a senior fellow at the Competitive…
PYMNTS
Bankers Tell Congress Regulation Hinders M&A and ‘De Novo’ Formation
PYMNTS cited CEI’s expert on bank mergers and de novo banks “In every business sector, new entrants are essential to the functioning of a competitive,…

Blog
Under Biden or Trump, taxing carried interest is stupid and destructive policy
No matter who’s in charge of the presidency or Congress, flawed proposals to close the so-called carried interest loophole just keep coming back. News outlets…
Search Posts
News Release
CEI Takes on Unconstitutional Agency in Court
Today, as Americans scurried to get their tax forms into the IRS, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments about another agency that…
Comment
Comments to National Association of Insurance Commissioners
Emptying the insurance policy shelves: Why price controls are a bad idea even in insurance markets.
Newsletter
Financial Regulations, Greenhouse Gases and Microsoft’s Bid for Yahoo
The Treasury Department’s “blueprint” for overhauling financial regulation faces strong opposition. State governments across the country pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. News Corp. considers…
Study
A Flawed Blueprint
America needs fundamental financial regulation reform. The Treasury Blueprint fails to provide it.
Newsletter
Global Health Threats, Foreclosure Relief and Food Riots
Members of Congress hear testimony on whether global warming will become a threat to human health. Senators agree on a foreclosure relief plan for mortgage…
News Release
New Financial Regulations Will Expand Bureaucracy
In a new study released this week, Competitive Enterprise Institute scholars size up the Treasury Department’s recent proposal to restructure the way…
Newsletter
Green Homes, Free Trade and Housing Discrimination
Multi-million dollar homes raise controversy for claiming “green” building credentials. Congress prepares to consider a new trade agreement with Colombia. An appeals court rules apartment…
Newsletter
The Exaflood, Mortgage Bailouts and Bear Stearns
Rising demand for bandwidth-intensive Internet applications threatens to swamp existing network capacity. The Senate considers a bill to “rescue” the U.S. housing market. Senators investigate…
News Release
Senators Investigate the Credit ‘Crisis’
Today, Federal officials and the CEOs of Bear Stearns and JPMorgan Chase will testify before the Senate Banking Committee on recent turmoil in U.S.
Newsletter
The Fed, Biotech Crops and Mortgage Bailouts
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson officially announces a plan to reform oversight of financial markets. Research into genetically modified crops gets a boost in India. President…
Newsletter
Paulson’s Plan, International Competition and New Leadership at FTC
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s plan to reform oversight of financial markets sparks intense debate. U.S. capital markets lose ground to international competitors. President Bush appoints…
Citation
Shady HUD Secretary to Resign
News Release
CEI Opposes Broad New Powers for Federal Reserve
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson today unveiled a plan for restructuring the federal role in regulating financial institutions. The blueprint contains good recommendations on…
Citation
Optional Federal Chartering of Insurance Companies
Citation
National Flood Insurance Program
Op-Eds
Bear Fire Sale Leaves Owners Without A Say
Bear Stearns shareholders, the true owners, are being denied a voice in the fate of the firm.
Op-Eds
Freedom and its Digital Discontents
Read John Berlau's closing statement in the Economist.com debate "Proposition: By intervening to regulate business and financial risks, governments have made things worse."…
News Release
Congress’s Online Gambling Ban: Burden Without Benefit, Says Study
Current laws about Internet gambling have had damaging unintended consequences far beyond their intended target.
Study
Time to Fold the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act
A bad law that could threaten America’s banking system…
Citation
5 Absurd Product Bans
Newsletter
Sarbanes-Oxley, Cancer Drugs and Discrimination Law
The National Law Journal warns that penalties in the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting rules for public companies can extend to individuals and private entities. Drug maker Cephalon…
Newsletter
Recession, Trade and Home Ownership
White House advisors cite the slowing economy as part of their call for tighter regulation of mortgage lenders. U.S. exports…
Citation
the Chamber of Commerce’s Support of Optional Federal Chartering
Study
The Community Reinvestment Act’s Harmful Legacy
How the CRA has hurt those it was intended to help, residence of low income neighborhoods with little access to credit.
Citation
South Carolina Homeowners Insurance Reform
Newsletter
Interest Rates, Video Games and an Economist Debate
Investors expect the Federal Reserve to enact a rare full percentage point cut in interest rates. A federal appeals court rules that Minnesota cannot fine…
Citation
the Possibility of a Recession
Citation
On the Verge of Another Fed Rate Cut; Update: Interest Rate Lowered .75 to 2.25 Percent
Study
Some Answers about Credit Unions
A recent, widely circulated advertisement from the American Bankers Association asks some questions of the credit union industry. They’re good questions and, in…
Newsletter
Gun Rights, Spitzer’s Legal Legacy and Economic Stimulus
The Supreme Court prepares to hear a challenge to Washington, D.C.’s city-wide ban on handguns. New York Governor Eliot Spitzer officially resigns from office today…
Op-Eds
Freedom and its Digital Discontents
John Berlau, director of CEI's Center for Entrepreneurship, debates Sarbanes-Oxley in the Economist…
Newsletter
Bandwidth Flood, Ethanol Victims and Insurance Mandates
Politicians debate the possibility of requiring Americans to purchase health insurance. Ethanol mandates continue to raise prices on agricultural producers around the country. Internet experts…
Study
Property and Casualty Insurance Report Card
Full Document Available in PDF According to Barron’s, the U.S. dominates the…
Study
The Case for Interstate Insurance Choice
Why Creating National Markets for Property and Casualty Insurance and Health Insurance Will Help Insurers and Consumers…
Citation
Dumb Product Bans
Study
First Steps toward Restoring Florida’s Insurance Market
Full Document Available in PDF As Florida’s Legislature proceeds with its…
Study
The Five Dumbest Product Bans
This paper focuses on five clearly absurd product bans that seem to serve no social good.
The Atlantic
Taxi Cab Confessions
Study
Restoring Florida’s Insurance Market
By the end of the 1990s, Florida’s property insurance market had largely recovered from the effects of 1992’s Hurricane Andrew, one of the costliest storms…
Op-Eds
A Disaster in the Making
Late last year, two recently elected southern Republican governors, Louisiana's Bobby Jindal and Florida's Charlie Crist, vowed to work together for a "national catastrophe fund"…
The Atlantic
Stimulation-Palooza: The Inevitable Lard-Up
The Atlantic
Stimulicious Stupidity
The Atlantic
Chuck Schumer Wants a Second Stimulus Package
National Review
Will the Stimulus Package Stimulate Marital Breakdown?
Op-Eds
Lawmakers, undo some of 2007 reforms
A year has passed since Gov. Charlie Crist and a nearly unanimous Legislature hailed the arrival of a new era for Florida’s property insurance…
National Review
Grantor’s Tax Should Be Repealed, Too
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine now wants to repeal the abusive-driver fees contained in Virginia’s 2007 transportation law, even though he signed that law and…
Study
Pros and Cons of Optional Federal Chartering for Insurers
Full Document Available in PDF The National Insurance…
Op-Eds
Vaccine Vindication
The vaccine preservative Thimerosal is not linked with autism, a new study reports. The data also suggest that the dilettante "scientist" Robert F. Kennedy,…
Products
CEI Planet: November – December 2007
Full Document Available in PDF The Tiger at a…
News Release
Bush Scheme for Lowering Home Mortgage Payments Could Trigger Credit Crunch
Washington, D.C., December 6, 2007—President Bush today week unveiled a plan to push financial institutions to "voluntarily" agree to freeze interest rates for adjustable-rate…