The market for regulation: would allowing companies to choose which authority oversees their issues of stocks and bonds make financial markets work better? (alternatives to Securities and Exchange Commission regulation)(Economics Focus)(Column)

Economist (US), The, March, 1998

Would allowing companies to choose which authority oversees their issues of stocks and bonds make financial markets work better?

ARTHUR LEVITT is the most controversial chairman of America's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in many a decade. From his shake-up of the Nasdaq stockmarket to his calls for Wall Street securities firms to improve the racial mix of their staff, Mr Levitt has frequently provoked praise and protest in equal measure. His admirers find nothing to complain about. But for those who dislike what the SEC has done, complaint is the only option. They have no alternative: the SEC, like its counterparts in many other countries, is a monopolist supplier of securities regulation.

In other markets, monopolies are regarded as evils that...

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