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57–923 PDF 2010

S. HRG. 111–766 

EQUIPPING FINANCIAL REGULATORS WITH THE 

TOOLS NECESSARY TO MONITOR SYSTEMIC RISK 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

SECURITY AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND 

FINANCE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

ON 

EXAMINING THE SYSTEMIC RISK ASPECT OF REGULATORY REFORM, 

FOCUSING ON REGULATORS’ CURRENT CAPABILITIES TO COLLECT 

AND ANALYZE FINANCIAL MARKET DATA, AND ASSESSING WHAT ADDITIONAL TOOLS AND RESOURCES ARE NECESSARY TO MONITOR 

AND IDENTIFY SYSTEMIC RISK 

FEBRUARY 12, 2010 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs 

( 

Available at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate/senate05sh.html 
COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS 

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut, Chairman 

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York 

EVAN BAYH, Indiana 

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

JON TESTER, Montana 

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin 

MARK R. WARNER, Virginia 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

JIM BUNNING, Kentucky 

MIKE CRAPO, Idaho 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

MIKE JOHANNS, Nebraska 

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas 

EDWARD SILVERMAN, Staff Director 

WILLIAM D. DUHNKE, Republican Staff Director and Counsel 

DAWN RATLIFF, Chief Clerk 

DEVIN HARTLEY, Hearing Clerk 

LEVON BAGRAMIAN, Hearing Clerk 

SHELVIN SIMMONS, IT Director 

JIM CROWELL, Editor 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SECURITY AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND FINANCE

EVAN BAYH, Indiana, Chairman 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee, Ranking Republican Member 

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin 

MARK R. WARNER, Virginia 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

ELLEN CHUBE, Staff Director 

COURTNEY GEDULDIG, Republican Staff Director 

KARA STEIN, Professional Staff Member 

(II)
C O N T E N T S 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2010 

Page 

Opening statement of Chairman Bayh .................................................................. 1 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 35 

Opening statements, comments, or prepared statement of: 

Senator Reed ..................................................................................................... 2 

Senator Corker .................................................................................................. 2 

WITNESSES 

Daniel K. Tarullo, Member, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ......................................................................................................................... 3 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 36 

Allan I. Mendelowitz, Founding Member, Committee to Establish the National Institute of Finance ................................................................................... 14 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 43 

John C. Liechty, Associate Professor of Marketing and Statistics, Smeal College of Business, Penn State University, and Founding Member, the Committee to Establish the National Institute of Finance ...................................... 16 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 43 

Robert Engle, Professor of Finance, Stern School of Business, New York 

University ............................................................................................................. 18 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 50 

Stephen C. Horne, Vice President, Master Data Management and Integration 

Services, Dow Jones & Company ........................................................................ 20 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 78 

(III)

(1) 

EQUIPPING FINANCIAL REGULATORS WITH 

THE TOOLS NECESSARY TO MONITOR SYSTEMIC RISK 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SECURITY AND INTERNATIONAL

TRADE AND FINANCE, 

COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met at 2:37 p.m. in room SD–538, Dirksen 

Senate Office Building, Senator Evan Bayh, Chairman of the Subcommittee, residing. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN EVAN BAYH 

Senator BAYH. Good afternoon, everyone. I am pleased to call to 

order this Subcommittee for the hearing entitled ‘‘Equipping Financial Regulators with the Tools Necessary to Monitor Systemic 

Risk.’’ I want to thank my Ranking Member, Senator Corker, and 

Senator Reed, my friend and colleague, and their hard-working 

staff for requesting this hearing on an issue that may seem technical to some, but will prove critical as we work to reform and modernize our regulatory structure for the future. 

I would also like to welcome and thank our able witnesses who 

are here today and thank our staff who have been instrumental 

with regard to technical aspects of this analysis. I am so happy to 

continue the dialog that we have already begun on how to equip 

our regulators to move beyond examining individual institutions 

and toward monitoring and managing systemic risk across our financial system. 

To our witnesses that will appear on two separate panels, welcome and thank you for appearing before the Subcommittee to give 

an outline on regulators’ current capabilities to collect and analyze 

financial market data and, most importantly, what additional resources and capabilities are necessary to provide effective systemic 

risk regulation. I understand very well that the weather in Washington the last few days has not been ideal. As a matter of fact, 

some of our witnesses have been stranded here for several days. So 

I appreciate the dedication you have shown in making it here 

today, and we promise to be, accordingly, most merciful in our 

questioning. 

Before I turn to Governor Tarullo—and, Dan, thank you again 

for appearing before the Subcommittee; you have been here very 

ably on other occasions—I would like to submit a few comments for 
2 

the record. I have a somewhat lengthy statement given the technical nature of the subject matter. I would like to submit that for 

the record, but will not read it. Is that all right with you, gentlemen? Very good. Hearing no objection, I will go ahead and do that. 

Senator BAYH. Before introducing Governor Tarullo, first, Senator Reed, perhaps you would have some comments you would like 

to share. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR JACK REED 

Senator REED. Very briefly, Mr. Chairman. I would like my statement submitted to the record also. I want to welcome Governor 

Tarullo also. I want to thank you for holding this hearing at the 

suggestion of Senator Corker, and this is a vital area and could, I 

think, be overlooked. But it is incredibly important. 

What we all witnessed over the last several years is not only 

great market turmoil but great market uncertainty. My impression 

of a lot of the problems with Lehman, with Bear Stearns, with AIG 

is the fact that regulators and other banking institutions had no 

idea where their liabilities, their risks, their counterparty exposure 

lay, and there was no systemic way to calculate or aggregate that 

information. And as a result, I think the regulators were flying 

blind, essentially, doing the best they could, trying to work things 

out, but a lot of it was just sort of flying with instruments that 

were not working in bad weather. It was more seat-of-the-pants 

than systemic regulation. 

So one of the things I think we have to do is create a repository 

of information available to regulators, available to the public with 

appropriate delays, so that the system is much more understandable and that, when there is a shock to the system, markets do not 

react out of fear, they react with some knowledge. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BAYH. Thank you, Senator Reed. 

Now, we have on this Committee become accustomed to something we call the Corker rule, where violating—or not violating, actually a breathtaking, refreshing difference from senatorial custom, 

Senator Corker is known for his brevity in opening statements. But 

since you request the hearing today and I know this is a major priority of yours, perhaps you would have some opening comments 

you would like to share. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR BOB CORKER 

Senator CORKER. I will be very, very brief. 

Number one, thank you for having this hearing. I know it is Friday afternoon. It has been snowing, and a lot of us are trying—— 

Senator BAYH. We have been trying since Tuesday to have this 

hearing. 

Senator CORKER. Right, but I thank you so much, and I want to 

thank Governor Tarullo for always being available and helping us 

think through these complex issues. 

Our second panel especially, Governor Tarullo, has, I know, been 

holed up on hotels and hanging around for several days to cause 

this testimony to actually occur prior to recess. I think everybody 

knows we are hopefully working toward a regulatory reform bill. It 

is important to get this testimony into the public record so we can 
3 

potentially act upon it. So we thank you all for being here, for your 

ideas, and with that, Mr. Chairman, as you walk out the door, 

thank you so much for having this hearing. I appreciate it. 

Senator REED. [Presiding.] Thank you, and on behalf of Senator 

Bayh and Senator Corker, let me introduce our first witness, Daniel K. Tarullo, who is a Governor of the Federal Reserve Board. He 

is an expert in international finance. He received his education beginning at Roxbury Latin School, and then he went on to Georgetown University, Duke University, and graduated with his law degree from Michigan. Prior to assuming his responsibilities at the 

Federal Reserve, he was a faculty member at the Georgetown Law 

School and prior to that served in the Clinton administration as 

Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs and 

other important responsibilities. 

Again, Governor, thank you for your presence, and we look forward to your statement. 

STATEMENT OF DANIEL K. TARULLO, MEMBER, BOARD OF 

GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM 

Mr. TARULLO. Thank you, Senator Reed and Senator Corker, and 

thank you both for your attention to a subject whose importance 

to financial stability is, as Senator Reed said a moment ago, often 

overlooked in the broader debates about reform. 

Good information is crucial to the success of any form of regulation as it is to the success of any form of market activity. But many 

features of financial activity make the quality and timeliness of information flows even more significant for effective regulation. Most 

important, perhaps, is the interconnectedness of financial services 

firms. In few other industries do major players deal so regularly 

with one another, as a result of which major problems at one firm 

can quickly spread throughout the system. 

The financial crisis revealed gaps in the data available to both 

Government regulators and to private analysts. It also revealed the 

relatively undeveloped nature of systemic or macroprudential oversight of the financial system. With this experience in mind, I believe there are two goals toward which agency and congressional 

action to improve data collection and analysis should be directed. 

First, to ensure that supervisory agencies have access to highquality and timely data that are organized and standardized so as 

to enhance their regulatory missions, including containment of systemic risk; 

And, second, to make sure such data available to other Government agencies, to private analysts, to academics, in appropriately 

usable form so that the Congress and the public will have the benefit of multiple perspectives on potential threats to financial stability. 

My written testimony details some of the initiatives at the Federal Reserve to enhance the type and quality of information available to us in support of our exercise of consolidated supervision 

over the Nation’s largest financial holding companies. I would 

stress also, though, the importance of using that information to 

regulate more effectively. 

The Special Capital Assessment we conducted last year of the 

Nation’s 19 largest financial firms demonstrated how quantitative, 
4 

horizontal methodologies built on consistent data across firms could 

complement traditional supervision. It also showed the importance 

of having supervisory needs and knowledge determine data requirements. We are building on that experience and adding a more 

explicitly macro prudential dimension and developing a quantitative surveillance mechanism as a permanent part of large-firm 

oversight. While there is much that the Federal Reserve—and 

other agencies such as the SEC—can do and are doing under existing authority, I do believe we will need congressional action to 

achieve fully the two goals I stated a moment ago. 

There are a number of specific areas in which legislative changes 

would be helpful. Let me briefly mention three. 

First, it is very important that Government agencies have the 

authority to collect information from firms not subject to prudential 

supervision, but which may nonetheless have the potential to contribute to systemic risk. Without this ability, regulators will have 

a picture of the financial system that is incomplete, perhaps dangerously so. 

Second, it appears to me that greater standardization of important data streams will only be achieved with a congressional prod. 

This objective of standardization has for years proved elusive, even 

though most observers agree that it is critical to identifying risks 

in the financial system. 

Third, there will need to be some modifications to some of the 

constraints on information colleague by Government agencies, such 

as authority to share that information with foreign regulators or to 

release it in usable form to the public. Since privacy, proprietary 

information, intellectual property, reporting burden, and other important interests will be implicated in any such modifications, it is 

most appropriate that Congress provide guidance as to how these 

interests should be accommodated in a more effective system of financial data collection. 

Finally, as you consider possible legislative changes in this area, 

I would encourage you to consider the relationship between the authorities and responsibilities associated with data collection and 

the substantive regulatory authorities and responsibilities entrusted to our financial agencies. 

Generally speaking, regulators have the best perspective on the 

kind of data that will effectively advance their statutory missions. 

Indeed, without the authority to shape information requirements, 

their effectiveness in achieving these missions can be compromised. 

This is all the more important given the current state of knowledge 

of systemic risk in which there are as many questions as answers. 

In these circumstances in particular, the insights gained by supervisors through their ongoing examination of large firms and of 

markets should be the key, though not the exclusive determinant, 

of new data collection efforts. This does not mean that agencies 

should collect only the information they believe they need. 

The aim of providing independent perspectives on financial stability means that other data may be important to collect for the use 

of private analysts, academics, and the public. The agencies can 

certainly be asked to collect other forms of information that are important for independent assessments of financial stability risks. 
5 

But I think this relationship does counsel considerable symmetry 

between regulatory responsibility and data collection. 

Thank you for your attention and, again, for having this hearing. 

I would be pleased to try to answer any questions you might have. 

Senator REED. Well, thank you very much, Governor Tarullo. 

Let me first ask the question that this need for better information is not exclusive to the United States. Could you comment on 

how other G–20 countries are trying to deal with this and the need 

for not just a national approach but an international approach? 

Mr. TARULLO. Certainly, Senator. A number of other regulators 

and overseers around the world have already begun to address the 

issue of information, among them the various organs of the European Union and the United Kingdom, the Bank of England. The G– 

20 itself has issued a couple of recommendations that are particularly salient to this question on developing a template for reporting 

of information of the large internationally active financial firms. 

Now, this is, of course, not an easy undertaking for any one nation much less for the world as a whole, but it is something which 

the Financial Stability Board has taken on as a task. There have 

been some preliminary discussions on how to organize the work of 

trying to see if we can come to agreement on a template for reporting of the largest, most globally active financial institutions. It is 

far too early to report progress there, Senator, but I can say that 

the effort has been launched. 

Senator REED. Well, thank you, Governor. As you know, as we 

are proceeding down, and I think appropriately so, a legislative 

path which we hope will incorporate this systemic collection of information, I have got legislation in—and, in fact, I want to thank 

Dr. Mendelowitz and Professor Liechty for their assistance and 

help. But this is going to have to be an effort that goes beyond the 

United States to understand that, but I think it is important that 

we begin here. 

Another aspect of this international question is the issue of sovereign behavior. The Greek Government now is in a very serious 

crisis which is rattling the markets. There also is some indication 

that another one of our favorite topics, derivatives and credit default swaps, have come into it. Apparently, there are reports that 

investment banking firms have helped them legally avoid treaty 

obligations under Maastricht, et cetera. But the long and the short 

of it is, do we also have to include sort of sovereign entities in 

terms of data collection? 

Mr. TARULLO. Well, Senator, I think that one of the lessons that 

the international community drew from some of the sovereign debt 

crises of the late 1990s and the very early years of this century was 

that there needed to be more transparency associated with a lot of 

sovereign debt issuance. And the International Monetary Fund undertook to create special data dissemination standards which would 

provide more such information. 

Generally speaking, I would distinguish between the sovereign 

information and private financial system firm information since we 

as regulators obviously have a mandate over private firms rather 

than certainly over sovereigns. It is relevant, though, for us in 

thinking about systemic risk because, to the degree that our large 

institutions have significant exposures to sovereigns which may 
6 

conceivably have difficulty in servicing their debt, that becomes a 

matter of concern for the private financial regulators as well. 

Senator REED. One of the issues that repeatedly is made—points, 

rather than issues—is that, you know, too big to fail is the first 

chapter, but the second chapter is too interconnected to fail. And 

that raises the issue of a focal point on large institutions might 

miss small institutions that could cause systemic risk. In fact, you 

know, there is the possibility that multiple failures in small institutions could have a systemic problem. 

So how do we sort of deal with that in terms of these interconnections? I mean, traditionally, it is easy for us to go to a big 

financial institution and say report X, Y, and Z. 

Mr. TARULLO. Right. 

Senator REED. How do we capture everybody, not in a pejorative 

sense but in a data sense? 

Mr. TARULLO. Sure. So let me distinguish while trying to address 

both the data collection and the regulatory supervisory side. 

I think with respect to data collection, there is little question, in 

our minds, at least, that the data collection authorities of U.S. Government agencies need to extend beyond the universe of firms 

which are subject to prudential or even market regulation. For the 

very reasons you suggest, a large number of intermediate size 

firms can themselves have a substantial amount of financial activity, which, although not necessarily associated with systemic risk 

in any one firm, in the aggregate can define an important phenomenon or trend or development in the economy as a whole. So 

we do think there needs to be that kind of authority in our financial regulators to gather the necessary information to round out the 

picture. 

When it comes to supervisory or regulatory authority, the three 

of us, at least, have been in this room on a number of occasions 

talking about the choices that we have in front of us, and one of 

those choices is going to be how broadly to cast or to draw the perimeter of regulation. Will it be only firms that own banks? Will 

it be firms beyond that which are thought to be themselves systemically important? Or will it be some broader set of firms above a 

certain size? And I think those issues are probably going to be 

more difficult to resolve than the data issues, where I personally, 

at least, think there is little argument against the proposition that 

you need to gather this information. 

Senator REED. Thank you. 

Senator Corker. 

Senator CORKER. Thank you. And, Senator, I want to thank you 

for raising this up. I do not think we would have met with our next 

panel without you having brought this forward, and I think you are 

actually responsible for all of this being brought to our attention. 

So thank you very much. 

Senator REED. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator CORKER. I appreciate that. 

Governor, I think you are probably familiar with the National Institute of Finance, as it has been proposed, and they have discussed certainly it being done in an independent way. I think you 

maybe would allude more to that happening at the Fed itself. But 

I am wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about the pros 
7 

and cons of what you know their proposal to be from the Fed’s 

standpoint. 

Mr. TARULLO. Certainly, Senator. So this will not surprise you to 

hear that I think there are some advantages and disadvantages to 

each of the different organizational options that you would face. 

One such option would be the creation of a single, free-standing 

agency that would have overall responsibility for all the financial 

data collection and a good bit of the analysis. 

On the other end of the spectrum would be presumably just giving more authority to a single U.S. Government—existing U.S. 

Government agency and saying why don’t you fill in the gaps? 

As I suggested in my written testimony, there is probably an option in between as well, particularly as you go forward with thinking about overall reg reform. 

To the degree that a council emerges, as I think it might, as an 

important center for coordinating the oversight of systemic risk in 

the United States among all the various U.S. Government agencies, 

we may want to lodge some of the data responsibilities in the council as well. 

The basic advantage, I think, of the single agency is what one 

would infer, which is you have a single group. They can take an 

overview. They can say let us try to prioritize, let us try to figure 

out where the most important unknowns are, and we will devote 

our activities in that direction, and we will do so in a way that we 

are not always stumbling over one another because we are just one 

agency. 

Some of the costs associated with the single agency—quite apart 

from out-of-pocket costs, which are nontrivial, but costs in the 

sense of non-immediate monetary costs—would include, I think, 

some risk that you detach data collection from the process of supervision, the process of regulation. And I do think it is important and 

I think our experience over the last couple of years has borne out 

the importance of having those with the line responsibility for supervising and regulating being able to shape the kinds of data collection that they feel are necessary in order effectively to regulate 

or to supervise. 

In the middle of the crisis, for example, it became apparent to 

some of the people at the Fed that getting information on the kinds 

of haircuts that were being applied to some securities repurchase 

agreements was a very important near-term piece of information in 

trying to assess where the system was at that moment. 

If that capacity had been lodged in an independent agency, with 

some of its own priorities perhaps and having to go through a bit 

more of a process, there may—and I emphasize ‘‘may’’—have been 

some delays in getting to that end. 

So I think that, as with everything, there are going to be pluses 

and minuses. It will not surprise you to know that from a somewhat—from the perspective of 20th and Constitution, there would 

be concerns about losing the capacity to shape and act quickly on 

informational needs. But I hasten to add that here, as with systemic risk generally, I do not think anybody at the Fed believes 

that the Fed should be the sole or even the principal collector and 

analyzer of data. This has got to be a governmentwide priority. 
8 

Senator CORKER. The information that you receive now, the data, 

how realtime is it? And I would assume during a crisis it is very 

important that it is daily. And then how granular is it today? 

Mr. TARULLO. So that varies considerably, Senator, from data 

stream to data stream, and I think the subject—let me be clear just 

that when some people say ‘‘realtime,’’ some people mean ‘‘immediate’’ by that; that as a trade happens, the data, the information 

about the trade is immediately available to regulators and possibly 

the public. 

For most of our supervisory purposes, that kind of literally 

realtime data is not critical to achieving those supervisory purposes. And, of course, as you all know, true realtime data is a very 

expensive thing to put together. But timely, meaning in many instances daily or end-of-the-day trading, is very important for making an assessment on a regular basis as to the stability of a firm 

that may be under stress. 

One of the things that became clear, I think, during the crisis— 

and for me became particularly evident during the stress tests last 

spring—was the substantial divergence in the capacities of firms to 

amass, to get a hold of their own data, to know what their own 

trades were, to know what their own counterparty risk exposures 

were. 

So one of the things that we have actually been doing in the 

wake of the Special Capital Assessment Program is placing particular emphasis on the management information systems of the 

firms, requiring that they themselves be able to get a hold of the 

data on trades or counterparty exposures or certain kinds of instrument—certain kinds of involvement with certain kinds of instruments, because if they can get a hold of it for their own internal 

purposes, we will be able to get a hold of it pretty quickly. 

So right now it is actually not so much a question of our telling 

them, ‘‘Send us something you have on a daily basis.’’ It is in many 

instances as much a matter of making sure they have the capacity 

to derive that information from their raw computer records and 

then to send it to us. 

Senator CORKER. May I ask another question, Mr. Chairman? 

Senator REED. Yes, sure. 

Senator CORKER. You know, of course, we all tend to try to find 

a solution that is unique and maybe alleviates a lot of just the 

daily work it takes to be good regulators, right? And a lot of what 

happened this last time could have been prevented with the tools 

we had if we just maybe had been a little more effective in regulating the way that we should have and Congress overseeing the 

way that it should have. But there were certainly lots of issues that 

caused this last crisis, if you will, to unfold. 

So we have had this wonderful presentation that we are going 

to hear next, and, you know, we envision having all this, at the end 

of the day, realtime type of data so we know positions throughout 

our country, so that regulators have the ability to know if something that is putting our country in systemic risk is occurring. 

What should we be concerned about there from the standpoint of 

having this thing that sounds really neat and costs money, how do 

we prevent it from being something that really is not that useful 
9 

but is collecting a lot of data that I imagine takes place throughout 

this city that is not utilized? 

And then, second, I would imagine that data like that collected 

in one place could be used for pretty nefarious purposes if it got 

into the wrong hands. If we actually have it and collect it, what 

should be our concerns in that regard? 

Mr. TARULLO. OK, so with respect to your first question, I mean, 

I do think that the efforts of the group of academics and others who 

have been promoting the NIF and certainly the efforts of the National Academy of Sciences in convening that workshop have been 

very valuable in drawing attention to and moving the debate forward on the data needs that we really do have. And I think, Senator, just to underscore something I said earlier, the absence of 

data from the shadow banking system was certainly problematic in 

retrospect. I think that the degree to which the tightly wound, very 

rapid shadow banking system was channeling liquidity around the 

financial system and, thus, the rapidity with which it came to a 

screeching halt once things began to break down, is something that 

was at least underappreciated by even those who foresaw problems 

ahead. 

So I do think that there is—and I do not think it is a coincidence, 

by the way, that some of the names I saw on the list of participants 

in that workshop that the NAS held were the names of scholars 

who have written, quite insightfully, I think, on the substantive 

causes of the crisis and of the way in which adverse feedback loops 

began when things moved into reverse. So I do think we need additional data sources. 

Now, how to make sure that every dollar of governmental funds 

spent on this are spent most wisely and how to make sure that we 

do not demand a lot of private expenditures that are not going to 

useful purposes is the kind of question that I think we all confront 

all the time in any Government regulatory or data collection effort. 

And I guess I would say that that is where some of the principles 

that we suggested in my written testimony I hope will be of some 

help. Keeping the regulator and supervisory agencies closely involved and, I would hope, the prime movers of these data collection 

efforts I think will help because whether it is the SEC or us or the 

CFTC, we are going to be most concerned in the first instance with 

achieving our statutory missions. And so for us that would be the 

consolidated supervision of the largest financial holding companies 

and also, obviously, our monetary policy and financial stability 

functions. That I think is one way to do it. 

I think a second way would be to make sure that there is some 

thought about new requirements coming forward. This is why OMB 

has the rules they have. And as you know, we think maybe some 

of the Paperwork Reduction Act features need to be changed 

around the edges. But there is a good reason why that act exists 

because you do want to put the brakes on people just willy nilly 

saying we would like new data sources. 

I think actually the council, if a council of regulators were created or the President’s working group could formalize such an effort, I think it would be useful to have different agencies actually 

thinking about what new data sources may be important and hav-
10 

ing a debate precisely to guard against any one maybe going a bit 

too far afield from its own regulatory mission. 

On the protection issue, obviously there are, as I mentioned, 

these important interests, proprietary interests, IP interests in 

some cases where vendors are involved, privacy interests where individuals are involved, a little bit less, obviously, with some of the 

things we are talking about. We ought to continue to have those 

protections. But it is also the case that our country I think wants 

to be protected from financial instability, and my conclusion at 

least is that the efforts to identify potential sources of financial 

stress and risk throughout the economy is not something that one 

or even a whole group of Government agencies should be the sole 

actors in. I think we do need to enable analysts, private analysts, 

finance professors, people who have expertise but are not in the 

Government, to look at what is going on in the economy to offer 

their views to you, to us, to the American people, and let us all filter through how much of that may be well grounded and where we 

might disagree. 

If we are going to do that, we have to figure out how to get this 

data into a sufficiently aggregated form so as to protect proprietary 

information, but to make sure that it is really useful to somebody 

out there who is trying to do an analysis and have some insight 

into what is going on in the subprime mortgage market or over-thecounter derivatives or anywhere else. 

Senator REED. Well, thank you, Governor Tarullo, and you have 

reminded me, I have to thank also the National Academy of 

Sciences because we asked them to convene that meeting and I am 

pleased that it produced positive results in your view and other 

people’s view, but thank you very much. 

Senator CORKER. I thought maybe you were going to ask another 

round. If I could just ask one more question—— 

Senator REED. Yes, and I might have one, but go ahead. You go 

first. 

Senator CORKER. No, go ahead. Absolutely. 

Senator REED. Well, it sort of—no, why don’t you go, because this 

is not Abbott and Costello, but you are ready. 

Senator CORKER. So a number of us have been looking at speed 

bumps, ways for us not to be faced with resolution. We obviously, 

if we have resolution, want to ensure that this whole notion of too 

big to fail is not part of the American vocabulary. But we have had 

numbers of entities in recently—today, yesterday, the day before— 

talking about contingent capital and the ability to take unsecured 

debt in an institution that is moving into problem areas and converting that immediately to common equity. 

I know that is a little bit off topic, but there is a lot happening. 

We are going on recess next week. I just wondered if you might 

have some comments regarding that. It is something that I think 

is gaining more and more attention. 

Mr. TARULLO. Sure. Actually, Senator, we have been paying a 

good bit of attention to that in the Federal Reserve. I got together 

a group of Board staff and staff from some of the Reserve Banks 

to try to think through some of the potential options here. 

So let me first begin with a little taxonomy because different people mean different things when they talk about contingent capital. 
11 

There are at least a couple of concepts here. One is a concept under 

which a firm would issue a specific kind of instrument which would 

have debt-like characteristics under normal circumstances, but by 

the terms of the instrument would itself have a conversion to equity when some trigger event happened. 

The concept behind that tends to be the following. There is a period during which a firm may still be somewhat healthy, but is beginning to deteriorate, and if capital levels go down to a certain 

level there will be a loss of confidence within the markets and 

counterparties with respect to that firm. So if at that point the trigger means that all of a sudden there are X-billion dollars more of 

common equity in the firm, that might provide a reassurance and 

stop a slide downward, and I will come back to that in a moment. 

A second concept is really one which is as much about the potential insolvency of the firm as it is stopping the slide. So some have 

proposed, for example, that all subordinated debtor all forms of 

debt other than specified senior tranches of debt would, at some 

moment, which would probably be the equivalent of when you are 

on the verge of insolvency, convert to equity, thereby, in effect, 

helping to move forward what would be a resolution process under 

another name, because now you have way less debt on the liability 

side of your balance sheet and more equity. 

The first is, I think, the concept that has intrigued some academics, some regulators, and, I must say, some investment bankers 

who probably see the opportunity to create some new forms of investment. The big issue there—there are a number of technical 

issues, but I think probably the biggest is what is the trigger going 

to be. If the trigger is supervisory discretion, you probably have an 

issue because everybody is going to be wondering whether the supervisor is going to pull the trigger for exogenous reasons, or when 

the supervisor would pull the trigger. It would create a good bit of 

uncertainty in the markets. 

A second option is that you have the trigger tied to the capital 

levels of the firm. Now, that still involves some supervisory discretion, but it is within the context of an ongoing regulatory system. 

The problem there has been that, as you know, capital tends to be 

a lagging indicator of the health of a firm. Many firms, 2 months 

before their insolvency, looked like they were adequately capitalized, and so unless we get a quicker adjustment of capital levels, 

that probably wouldn’t do the trick. 

A third proposal is to have a market-based trigger, a trigger that 

might, for example, be the relationship between common equity 

and assets or something of the sort, or the market price of the— 

a lag market price of the firm related to assets, something that 

gets the market in as the trigger so that nobody can manipulate 

it in any way. The concern that one hears from a lot of people 

about that approach is that it can induce a kind of death spiral in 

the firm, whereby people begin trading against—when they see the 

price go to a certain level, they begin trading against it. 

So my personal—and this is really personal, this is not the 

Board—my personal view is that all three of these approaches have 

significant problems. I personally just have excluded full supervisory discretion as a real option. But I think it is worth pursuing 

the technical challenges around both the market-based trigger and 
12 

the capital trigger and that is what we have asked our staffs to do 

within the Reserve Banks and the Board, to see if there is something here which can be—and this is important—which can be a 

less expensive form of capital for the banks. I don’t want to create 

anything that costs more than common equity for the banks. That 

is kind of a feckless undertaking. But if we can figure out a way 

to have a capital instrument which is there in the exigent circumstances but which costs less than common equity on a normal 

basis for the firms, I think that is something worth pursuing. 

I am sorry I was long-winded, but as you can tell, we have actually been analyzing this. 

Senator REED. Thank you. It did give me time to think of a question. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator REED. No, just a comment, because I think Senator 

Corker, as always, has raised a very interesting point, and this is 

a comment. When push came to shove, all the varieties of capital, 

risk-based capital, were essentially disregarded, the stress test, the 

tangible capital, or am I overstating or misstating? 

Mr. TARULLO. So our focus—so here is what happened, what I 

found so interesting during the crisis itself. During the crisis itself, 

private analysts, who are operating on the basis of less than full 

information, of course, and regulators both found themselves focused on common equity. Now, some of the market guys called it 

tangible common equity, but basically, it was common equity. And 

I think that what all of us, if we didn’t already believe it, and some 

of us did, but if we didn’t already believe it, what all of us concluded from this exercise was that common equity needed to be an 

even more important component of the equity of financial firms 

going forward. 

The stress tests, the SCAP, were conducted with the assumption 

that—or under a set of standards that looked to the common equity 

levels as well as the traditional tier one levels, and I think, Senator, that regulators around the world whom we talk to in the Financial Stability Board, market analysts, and the financial institutions themselves have all converged around the proposition that 

common equity really and truly is far and away the most important—not the only, but the most important component of regulatory 

capital. 

Why? Because if it is adequate, it allows the firm to continue as 

an ongoing institution. There are some forms of equity, tier two— 

excuse me, capital—tier two capital, which will be available to protect the Deposit Insurance Fund or senior creditors, but not to keep 

the firm going on an ongoing basis. And since I don’t think any of 

us relish the thought of another go-around of major challenges to 

major financial institutions, I think we are all focused on finding 

the best way to maintain higher levels of common equity—when I 

say all of us, I don’t just mean regulators. I think that is a market 

imperative, as well. 

Senator REED. Thank you. We had a sidebar which we don’t need 

to continue about Basel II. I think we do have to spend some time 

thinking hard about the rules of capital going forward. But just two 

quick comments about the issue at hand. 
13 

I don’t want to trivialize this, but essentially, this center would 

be on patrol for bubbles in the economy, things that could cause, 

you know, not in one forum but throughout the economy, real problems. Is that too simple, or is that—— 

Mr. TARULLO. No, I don’t think it is too simple, and if I—so if 

I can hearken back to a sidebar we had in a different hearing 

where you and I were talking about—I mentioned several times in 

the written and oral testimony the need for independent views of 

things, and this is something which I have always believed, but my 

conversations with you have reinforced it in this context, that no 

matter how good a job I think the Fed can and will do, or no matter how good a job in market regulation I think the SEC can and 

will do, the uncertainties around financial stability are always 

going to be significant because stresses and problems arise in new 

ways. 

And so I think it is important for us to foster within the government but also outside of the government the ability of multiple 

agents to make a judgment on this. 

Now, I guess I think that this is something which is best—within 

the government is best pursued in a collegial fashion, which is why 

the council occurred to me. I think if we are doing our analyses and 

the SEC is doing its and Treasury is doing its, bringing those together in council discussions and determining whether there needs 

to be a different kind of analysis or initiative seems to me to make 

a lot of sense. It may also make sense—again, responding to something you suggested to me a while ago—it may also make sense to 

have a council have at least a smallish staff of people who themselves are dedicated to looking at all of this and maybe doing some 

heterodox analyses. 

So I think I am all in favor of that, and actually not all in favor 

of it in the sense of we wouldn’t oppose it. I personally think it is 

an affirmative good. 

Senator REED. Thank you very much. 

Senator CORKER. I know we need to move on with the subject at 

hand. I would like for you to, in writing, maybe respond, just so 

we can get something on the public record, regarding how—going 

back to the collateral or the capital we were talking about a little 

while ago, using maybe a quarterly stress test that was made public, thinking through how something like that might help us. But 

I know we don’t have time for that today. 

Mr. TARULLO. OK. 

Senator CORKER. We again thank you so much—— 

Mr. TARULLO. Happy to do it. 

Senator CORKER. If you could do that in the next few days, that 

would be wonderful. 

Mr. TARULLO. OK, Senator. 

Senator CORKER. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator REED. Thank you, and I will call the second panel forward. Thank you all, gentlemen. Let me introduce the second 

panel. 

First, Dr. Allan I. Mendelowitz. Dr. Mendelowitz is a Washington-based economist and housing finance expert. He is the cofounder of the Committee to Establish the National Institute of Fi-
14 

nance and the former Chairman and member of the Board of Directors at the Federal Housing Finance Board, where he served two 

terms. Thank you for your assistance on this issue, Doctor. Thank 

you very much. 

Our next witness is Professor John C. Liechty. Professor Liechty 

is the Associate Professor of Marketing and Statistics at the Smeal 

College of Business at Pennsylvania State University. He is also 

the co-founder of the Committee to Establish the National Institute 

of Finance. Thank you very much, Professor. 

We are also joined by Professor Robert Engle. Professor Engle is 

the Michael R. Merlino Professor of Finance at the New York University’s Stern School of Business. Professor Engle was awarded a 

Nobel Prize for Economics in 2003, along with his colleague at the 

time, I presume, Dr. Granger at the University of California at San 

Diego. 

Our final witness is Stephen C. Horne. Mr. Horne is currently 

the Vice President for Master Data Management and Integration 

Services for Dow Jones Business and Relationship Intelligence. He 

specializes in data integration and analysis of large quantities of 

disparate data from thousands of sources and the improvement of 

marketing productivity from the resulting information. Thank you 

very much, Steve, for returning. 

Dr. Mendelowitz, please. 

STATEMENT OF ALLAN I. MENDELOWITZ, FOUNDING MEMBER, 

THE COMMITTEE TO ESTABLISH THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE 

OF FINANCE 

Mr. MENDELOWITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Corker. I am really very pleased to be here today as a representative of the Committee to establish the National Institute of 

Finance and to bring the recommendations and findings of that 

committee. 

The Committee to Establish the National Institute of Finance is 

an extraordinarily unique group, based on my three-and-a-half decades of experience in Washington. I have actually never seen anything like it. It is a committee that has raised no money. It is a 

committee that represents no vested interests. It is a committee 

where no single member has any personal financial interest in the 

outcome of our recommendations. It is a committee where we have 

covered our expenses, what they are, out of our own pockets, and 

because we never organized as a 501(c)(3), we don’t even get the 

tax benefits associated with those expenditures. 

What it is, is it is a group of extraordinarily talented and, in 

many cases, very distinguished members, all brought together by 

the commonly shared view that the Federal Government and the 

regulatory communities lack the data and lack the research capability to effectively monitor and regulate systemic risk, and for that 

matter, to effectively monitor and regulate financial institutions 

and markets. 

We have come together to propose a solution to that inadequacy 

in the Federal Government’s capability and that solution is the National Institute of Finance. And we view the National Institute of 

Finance as addressing the weaknesses, both respect to data and research and analytical capability, and I can’t stress the importance 
15 

of the research and analytical capability enough. A lot of time was 

spent with the earlier panel discussing data and there was far less 

mention of the analytical capability. 

The reality is, we do not have a particularly good understanding 

of how financial markets work because we have never had the kind 

of sustained research effort that would yield those insights. Despite 

the fact that there are research departments at large financial institutions, there is a lot of good research being done by very talented people in academia, there are research departments in the 

regulatory agencies, but at the end of the day, the research efforts 

never had access to the appropriate data or to the sustained funding to do the kind of work that would provide the analytical tools 

needed by regulators given the challenges that we face today. 

And that is why in our proposal for the National Institute of Finance we would have two key components: One, the Federal Financial Data Center; and the second, a Federal Financial Research and 

Analysis Center. We think the structure of the institute should be 

set up in a way that ensures that it can, in fact, play its key role. 

It would be, as we indicated, an independent agency, ideally. It 

would be an independent voice on issues of financial risk, regulation, and policy. It would be independent for several reasons. One, 

it hopefully would be free from political influence. 

Second, it would be free from having to investigate its own decisions and actions. As long as the institute is not a regulatory agency, it is untainted by the fact that if it were investigating itself, it 

would be given an impossible challenge and an impossible task if 

you are looking for really truly independent, high-quality assessments of what is going on. 

Third, the institute would be self-funded, and it would be selffunded for a couple of important reasons. One, fairness. It is our 

understanding, based upon the research that we have seen and the 

discussions we have held that adapting the common data standards 

associated with the Federal Financial Data Center would produce 

a significant reduction in operating costs on the part of financial 

institutions. Because it would get this benefit, it is only fair that 

some small share of those savings would be used to fund the operations of the institute. 

Second, given the burdens placed on the taxpayer and the taxpayers in this most recent crisis, it is not appropriate that taxpayers should be asked to pay for the monitoring of an industry 

which has already imposed a tremendous burden on the taxpayers. 

And third, there are certain benefits in the ability to compensate 

staff and attract folks that go with being funded with non-appropriated funds that would make it more competitive. 

All of this is critical and it, of course, would yield multiple benefits. It would yield substantial benefits in terms of improving the 

efficiency and effectiveness of financial regulation. It would reduce 

the likelihood of a future systemic event. It would make U.S. markets safer and more competitive. It would reduce the operating expenses of financial institutions. And the kind of standardized data 

that would be required would go a long way toward addressing one 

of the problems that Governor Tarullo mentioned when he commented on how he was surprised to find out that financial institu-
16 

tions actually didn’t have a good handle on what their own exposures were and they didn’t have ready access to that kind of data. 

Last, I just want to say how pleased we are that we learned last 

week that Senator Reed introduced S. 3005, the National Institute 

of Finance Act of 2010. That Act is structured in a way that creates 

a National Institute of Finance along the lines that we think would 

be essential to making it effective and we were really very appreciative to see that legislative measure. 

That concludes my oral comments and I will be happy to answer 

any questions you or the Committee may have. 

Senator REED. Thank you very much, Doctor. 

Professor Liechty, please. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN C. LIECHTY, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF 

MARKETING AND STATISTICS, SMEAL COLLEGE OF BUSINESS, PENN STATE UNIVERSITY, AND FOUNDING MEMBER, 

THE COMMITTEE TO ESTABLISH THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE 

OF FINANCE 

Mr. LIECHTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Corker. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and to again also speak about 

or on behalf of the Committee to Establish the National Institute 

of Finance. 

I would like to just give a little history. The Committee to Establish the National Institute of Finance started a little over a year 

ago at a workshop that was jointly sponsored by the Office of the 

Comptroller of the Currency and the National Institute of Statistical Sciences. As an academic and a professional statistician, I was 

really interested in the topic of the workshop, which is exploring 

statistical issues in financial risk and in bank regulation. I consult 

with some of the big investment banks, specifically helping them 

with issues related to modeling and valuing many of these complicated credit derivative securities that played a part in the recent 

crisis and I was hoping that the workshop would focus on systemic 

risk. But it was primarily focused on Basel I and Basel II and assessing the safety and soundness of individual institutions. 

And focusing on the safety and soundness of individual institutions is important, but that in and of itself will not ensure the safety and soundness of our financial system. In some ways, this approach is similar to ensuring that a group of cars going on a freeway or around a racetrack are all individually safe and sound, but 

then ignoring the larger dynamics of the traffic, for example, 

whether the cars are bunched together, they are observing safe 

stopping rules, or going too fast as a collective group. 

Now, because there was a broad collection of regulators, academics, and practitioners at this workshop, I asked a very simple 

question in my mind. Does anybody have the data necessary to 

monitor and measure systemic risk? And the informal consensus I 

got from that workshop is the same consensus I have heard over 

and over again as we have gone forward with this effort. The regulators do not have the correct data, and in addition, to get the data 

they need, it will probably require additional legislation. 

Now, I spent the bulk of my professional career developing methods and systems to go from data to information and I know that 

just collecting data is not enough. We have to have the appropriate 
17 

analytic tools if we are going to turn that data into the useful information to be able to really monitor and measure systemic risk, and 

it will not only take more than data collection, it will take more 

than just building the models itself. In my view, in some sense, it 

is a fundamental scientific problem, that we have to put forward 

fundamental research efforts in order to be able to understand the 

frameworks, be able to frame the metrics, be able to get the models 

in place and then know what data we need. 

In some sense, I echo the finding that came from the National 

Academy of Sciences workshop which was that we really don’t actually know all the data and we are not going to know until we have 

an iterative process, which is the fundamental part of the research 

process. 

Let me illustrate with an analogy from the weather, which is 

very appropriate given our last couple of days. This focuses on hurricanes. When the financial crisis of 2008 hit, the regulators and 

policymakers charged with keeping our financial system safe were 

taken by surprise. Although there were some indications of uncertainty, this financial storm hit with the same unexpected suddenness as the New England Hurricane of 1938. The Martha’s Vineyard Gazette noted at that time, this tragedy was not the loss of 

nearly 10,000 homes and businesses along that shore. It was the 

psychic destruction of summer for an entire generation. 

Earlier hurricanes had brought structural responses from the 

U.S. Government. The Weather Bureau was formed in 1870 under 

President Ulysses S. Grant with a mandate to gather data on the 

weather and provide warnings of approaching storms. Even though 

the Weather Bureau was in place, it was not able to offer any 

warnings for the Category 4 hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas, 

September 8, 1900, and it only offered a few hours of warning for 

the hurricane that hit Miami September 18, 1929. 

By 1938, the Weather Bureau had better models, it had better 

data, but as the New York Times observed regarding that hurricane, the Weather Bureau experts and the general public never 

saw it coming. I would ask, are our regulators and policymakers 

any better equipped today than the Weather Bureau of 1938? 

In 1970, President Richard Nixon created the National Oceanic 

and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, with the mandate to do 

three things. One, collect data to document natural variability and 

support predictive models. Two, to develop new analytic and forecasting tools. And three, to conduct essential long-term research to 

underlie these models. 

Now, NOAA’s current real-time data collection and analysis infrastructure is very impressive. It is significant. It continues to 

bring substantial benefits to our society. But they were made possible mainly through and largely through the research efforts of 

NOAA. 

At this point, I would like to offer an observation and a question. 

Clearly, I put forward to you that our financial markets are at 

least as important and as complicated as the weather. If that is the 

case, why don’t we have the equivalent of NOAA for the financial 

markets? 

When it comes to safeguarding our system, our goal should be 

bold, our expectations realistic, and our dedication to the task sub-
18 

stantial. Although it will take time, the benefits will far outweigh 

the cost, just as they have done for hurricanes. 

This concludes my oral remarks. I would be open to any questions you might have. Thank you. 

Senator REED. Thank you very much, Professor. 

Professor Engle, please. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT ENGLE, PROFESSOR OF FINANCE, 

STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 

Mr. ENGLE. Thank you. It is a great pleasure to be here today. 

I appreciate the invitation from the Committee. Mr. Chairman, Mr. 

Corker, Mr. Reed, it is a pleasure to be here. 

I am here because I recently co-authored a report of the National 

Research Council that summarized a workshop on Technical Capabilities Needed for the Regulation of Systemic Risk. The Research 

Council is the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences, 

the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine, all chartered by Congress to advise the Government on matters of science and technology. The workshop and its report were 

sponsored by the Sloan Foundation and were actually in response 

to a letter from Senator Reed. After I summarize our report, I 

would like to give you some personal opinions on the National Institute of Finance and the questions that were in the call. 

Our 1-day workshop, summarized, came to the following set of 

conclusions, I think. 

First of all, we were all convinced that with better data and better analytical tools, the problems of reducing systemic risk were actually solvable. Research necessary to accomplish this goal is already underway in both academic and regulatory settings, but it is 

now being carried out with purely market-based data and, therefore, does not have access to the full range of information that 

would be needed to make these models as accurate as possible. 

Additional data collection across asset classes with counterparty, 

position, collateral, and valuation information would be extremely 

helpful. Nevertheless, it was clear at the meeting that many participants were unsure exactly how great this—what data would ultimately be needed. There is an important question that keeps coming up: whether the total range of everything that you can think 

of is required or there is a subset that could be required, and how 

would you select the subset of data that is really needed. 

The first step in this process would be the standardization and 

classification particularly of the OTC contracts, and this would be, 

I think, a substantial benefit to the industry as well as to the regulators if this could be accomplished, and it is one of the goals of 

the NIF. 

But even more important, as Allan said just a moment ago, than 

the data are the models, because data alone will not tell us about 

risk, it will not tell us about liquidity, it will not tell us about bubbles and other features which are necessary in order to understand 

the risks that face our financial system. And so the analysis is extremely important as well. 

So that concludes my brief summary of the meeting the National 

Research Council had. The full summary I would ask be attached 

to the record. 
19 

Senator REED. Without objection. 

Mr. ENGLE. Now let me say a few other things in my remaining 

time. Data gathered by supervisory agencies is already being used 

in attempts to try to calculate and evaluate systemic risk. This 

data, however, is often available on an as-asked basis. In other 

words, it does not flow regularly to the agencies. They need to request it from the agencies they supervise, and this gives them only 

a partial picture, in any case. 

There is additional data within clearinghouses that is available 

to regulators, but, again, regulators cannot get this on a regular 

basis, and there is difficulty with sharing it across regulators. 

The same thing is true of risk reports. Risk reports are reported 

by financial institutions on a daily basis, but these, of course, discuss the risks of the firm, not the risks of the system, and do not 

have important kinds of counterparty information that we would 

really want to us the networks of risks across the system. 

So, in summary, regulators do have a substantial amount of information available, but it is not on a systematic basis, and it cannot easily be shared across regulatory agencies. 

Let me make just a couple more points on more general topics. 

It seems to me there is a question of the independence of the National Institute of Finance. I am a supporter of the proposal for the 

National Institute of Finance. The idea that it is an independent 

organization is important because it needs to be insulated from 

pressures from corporations and from Government. However, this 

independence could also be achieved if it were housed, I believe, 

within regulatory agencies who were already independent in that 

same sense. There could be substantial cost savings from such a location of NIF. 

The international effects of this are extremely important, and the 

location of the National Institute of Finance would necessarily—it 

would be very important that it be able to collaborate and share 

data and analytical tools with sister agencies around the globe; otherwise, we only see a partial picture of this financial system. 

Then one final comment. The security of the data is extremely 

important to preserve, but I think—and I think that an ultimate 

goal would be to make as much of this data in a delayed and aggregated form available to the public as possible. Transparency in financial markets is a great supplement to regulation. It is cheaper, 

and it may be more effective in many ways than much of the regulation we consider, and so an ultimate goal, I think of the National 

Institute of Finance would be to disseminate as much of this information as possible, and that would require congressional guidance. 

Thank you. 

Senator REED. Thank you very much, Professor Engle. 

Mr. Horne, please. 

STATEMENT OF STEPHEN C. HORNE, VICE PRESIDENT, MASTER DATA MANAGEMENT AND INTEGRATION SERVICES, 

DOW JONES & COMPANY 

Mr. HORNE. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Reed, Senator Corker. Thank you this afternoon for spending time with us. My name 

is Steve Horne. I am Vice President of Master Data Management 

for Dow Jones, as Senator Reed introduced me earlier. I have spent 
20 

over 30 years building very complex databases and transforming 

highly complicated data into usable information. 

I have testified many times over the last year on the impact of 

the financial meltdown and the need for comprehensive analytic 

databases designed to capture the appropriate realtime information 

necessary to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse of the IPSA Act—and 

‘‘realtime’’ I think was discussed earlier—including those of the 

TARP program to ensure that the American taxpayer’s money is 

being used as intended. 

Legislation that would create such a database has been introduced by Senator Warner—it is S. 910—with a companion bill that 

has already passed the House, H.R. 1242, by a vote of 421–0. These 

bills have been strongly endorsed by organizations such as the U.S. 

Chamber of Commerce, OMB Watch, and the Center for Democracy 

in Technology. 

Using the same basic infrastructure of the database that would 

be created under the legislation that I have described, we at Dow 

Jones have identified over 400 leading indicators that, when used 

together, can identify potential systemic risk within the financial 

system, but also, I want to add, many other parts of the economy, 

which expands upon what our esteemed presenters have presented 

today. And the challenge is to combine this disparate data into a 

structured database to be able to make informed decisions and 

judgments about the risks that are inherent to the system. 

Systemic breakdowns that impact individual geographic markets 

in this country are caused by a combination of factors, including 

unemployment, bankruptcy, foreclosures, commercial real estate 

failure, and other factors. For example, in Las Vegas, a huge influx 

of different socioeconomic groups moved into this market in the 

past 10 years. One of these groups is retirees. And when the financial meltdown occurred, these Americans were mostly living on 

fixed incomes: savings, retirement investments, and their Social 

Security. They bought retirement homes either with cash or with 

mortgages that were smaller than many, but they still incurred 

new debt. Over the last 3 years, the income from their retirement 

accounts went negative. They have had to dip into principal as the 

only way for them to gain cash. 

As the foreclosures generally grew around them, the retirees saw 

the value of their homes decrease in half as well. Those who had 

mortgages were now upside down, those who did not saw the major 

investment they had spent a lifetime building dwindle in value. 

Now, these senior citizens face a much more difficult situation. 

With a major portion of their principal gone, they cannot afford to 

live on their fixed income and now may have to go back to work. 

In Las Vegas, 16-percent unemployment does not bode well for anybody looking for a job. If they own their home, new mortgages are 

very difficult to get. Reverse mortgages are not an option because 

of the reduced availability of these programs. And the combination 

of these factors shows the market for retirees in Las Vegas is in 

systemic failure right now. So I am expanding upon the concept of 

systemic failure to talk about the markets as well as the financial 

systems that support those markets. 

The example of this process is known in statistical terminology 

as the ‘‘Compounding Effects of Multiple Indices.’’ If we can inte-
21 

grate this data into an actionable database, regulators can quickly 

implement surgical solutions that will apply the appropriate programs and/or funds to the most serious problems. 

The database can be applied for potential systemic failure of the 

commercial real estate market that has been highlighted by the 

Congressional Oversight Board report that was issued just 2 days 

ago. And, in addition, we are currently observing markets in North 

Carolina and Tennessee that are at risk of systemic failure. If the 

proposed database were in place, the Government would be in a 

better position to confirm, quantify, and tackle these problems 

proactively. 

Unfortunately, the data is in disparate systems that cannot talk 

to each other. The value of the database that is proposed in S. 910 

is in its ability to combine and analyze this data to predict and prevent systemic risk. The transformation of this data into actionable 

information is neither easy nor inexpensive. However, the implementation of the proposed database will save significant taxpayer 

dollars in three ways: first, through more efficient targeting of resources and serving the areas of greatest need; second, by enabling 

the Government to ensure that the appropriate actions are taken 

before systemic failure occurs; and, third, by helping prevent waste, 

fraud, and abuse of taxpayer’s money. 

The database proposed should not create additional security concerns. The security methodologies under the IPSA Act and the contractual controls for the use of commercial data are sufficient to 

protect this information. In addition, language included in H.R. 

1242 that passed the House provides for even greater protections 

for non-public data. 

The system being proposed is designed to expand to cover global 

data. Although some of the data from overseas may not be accessible due to laws of specific countries, other international data is 

in better shape than our own and can be built into accurate analytic systems because of the early adoption of XBRL technology by 

many countries. 

In summary, the data and technology exist today to equip financial regulators with the tools necessary to monitor systemic risk. 

The only thing lacking is Government action to make it happen. 

I want to thank you again, Senator Reed and Senator Corker, for 

your time and attention, and I am happy to answer any questions 

you may have. 

Senator REED. Thank you very much, Mr. Horne. Thank you all, 

gentlemen, for excellent testimony, and let me begin with the comments you made, Dr. Mendelowitz. 

It is very difficult to review objectively your own decisions and 

actions. I think that is a very strong rule in every type of human 

endeavor, and particularly in these endeavors. And that argues, I 

think, strenuously for some type of independent agency. You can 

also factor in that there are particular cultures in agencies that obscure—illuminate and obscure analysis of data. 

Again, I wonder if you might comment on this issue of independence, and I would ask all you gentlemen to do so. Could you please 

turn your microphone on? 
22 

Mr. MENDELOWITZ. Yes. I have got it. I am a little rusty on this. 

It has been a while since I have been in this hearing room as a 

witness. 

Senator, you have highlighted—there are handfuls of critical 

things associated with the NIF proposal, and independence is one 

of those absolutely essential ones. If someone has the control over 

the purse of the NIF, they are not independent. If the NIF were 

to have to investigate its own actions, it certainly could not be unbiased. And so we feel very strongly that this is absolutely an essential component, and no matter how and where the institute is 

placed or structured, unless it has those absolutely essential independent safeguards, it cannot be effective. 

It is one of the reasons why we proposed that the Director of the 

NIF be a Presidential appointee, Senate confirmation, with a fixed 

term so that he or she would not serve at the pleasure of the President. 

And it is interesting because not only is this independence critical with respect to backward-looking on past decisions, it is actually also critical sort of going forward. One of the reasons why our 

proposal includes the fact that the NIF would not have any regulatory authority, except to set data standards and compel the provision of data, is the fact that if the NIF not only had to do the analysis and then act on the analysis, its ability to report clearly its 

findings would be compromised. 

The example I like to give is a provision in law that I was involved with a number of years ago which requires the Treasury Department to make an annual report to the Congress on foreign 

countries that manipulate their exchange rates for trade advantage. Now, those of us who at one time or another have followed 

this issue know that over the years a number of different countries 

have clearly manipulated their currencies for trade advantage. 

There is ample evidence. The most obvious example currently is 

the value of the Chinese RMB. And despite all the evidence that 

has been there, I do not believe the Treasury Department has ever 

been able to conclude in a report to Congress that any country was 

manipulating its exchange rate for foreign currency advantage. 

With the case of systemic regulation, I have to say that if a systemic regulator took the data and analysis and used it correctly 

and acted appropriately, that regulator would only be subject to 

criticism, because if he is successful, if she is successful, we would 

never see the next systemic event because it would have been prevented. But the actions of the regulator definitely will have taken 

some profits away from someone and slowed down the good times. 

If a systemic regulator—if the NIF had regulatory responsibilities, they would reach conclusions, the time would come to present 

the conclusions publicly, and I could just hear the sort of wheels 

turning in the minds of the Director, and he or she might say, 

‘‘Gee, I do not know. If we release this, I act on it, I am going to 

get a lot of criticism. Let us wait a little while and see what happens.’’ 

So the answer is whether you are looking backward, whether you 

are looking forward, whether you are looking at budget issues, 

whether you are looking at the position of the Director of the insti-
23 

tute, this issue of independence is central and critical to the ability 

of the institute to do its job. 

Senator REED. Thank you. Your comments sort of—there is a relationship with CBO that has a degree of independence from us 

that sometimes we appreciate and sometimes we disparage. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator REED. But I believe that Director is appointed for a term 

of 5 years. 

Mr. MENDELOWITZ. Five years. 

Senator REED. And serves independent of us. They have proven 

that the last few months rather aggressively. 

I wonder if anyone else has a comment on independence. Professor? 

Mr. LIECHTY. I would be happy to. I will echo what Allan has 

said, what Dr. Mendelowitz has said, about in the importance in 

terms of political pressures that the institute is able to act in a way 

that it feels is in the best interest for the country. I have five reasons for being here: Joseph, Jacob, Sam, Matt, and Tom, my five 

boys. I want them to have a safe, secure financial system that gives 

them the same opportunity as I had when they grow up and get 

into the real world and start providing for a family. 

I think you need to have somebody who has the ability to speak 

the truth in the middle of a crisis or in the buildup to a crisis and 

can have the protection. There are really two roles that you think 

about in terms of systemic regulation. One is advisory, seeing and 

understanding the risks, and then speaking about them. The second one is the actual regulatory implementation, the different actions you might take in terms of how capital requirements—or how 

the institutions themselves are regulated. And I think it is very important to separate those two, and making the National Institute 

of Finance independent would do that. 

A second point that you want to consider in terms of why you 

want to keep the National Institute of Finance independent and 

why you want to also have somebody of high stature involved who 

is a Presidential appointee, who is going to be able to serve not at 

the will of the President but for a fixed term, is that if there is a 

crisis, again, that does happen and the National Institute of Finance is in place, all eyes will turn to the National Institute of Finance. And it needs to have absolute credibility. It needs in some 

sense to be like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. When it speaks, it is not speaking because it has some political agenda or because it has to worry about whether its budget is 

going to be cut or not cut. It is speaking because it is trying to 

serve the best interests of the Nation. 

Senator REED. I want to invite the other panelists to comment 

also, but one other factor that I think strikes me is that it goes to 

your point about surprise, and I thought the analogy with the hurricane of 1938 was—I will borrow it. It seems very compelling. But 

part of this was this was never seriously discussed at a national 

level—‘‘this’’ meaning the growing housing bubble, the national 

characteristics of it, the growing derivatives trade from a notional 

value of X to 200X. And as a result, it sort of got lost in the shuffle, 

and I think one of the purposes of having an agency like this is to 

get critical topics on the agenda of Congress and the regulators. 
24 

Then it is our responsibility. But if you do not have an authoritative institution supported by data doing that, then the problem 

I think you will have is that the next time it will be something different. It will not be a housing bubble and subprime mortgages. It 

will be something we are not even thinking about, and it will come 

up. Regulators will talk about it. I am sure the Fed debated internally about the housing bubble. I am sure that the OCC and everybody did. But it never broke through because there was no one 

tasked with saying this is a serious systemic risk or should be considered at least at this juncture as such. So that is my two bits on 

the point. 

Dr. Engle, please, and then Mr. Horne. 

Mr. ENGLE. Well, I was just going to say I think an independent 

NIF would be very effective, but I think it could also be effective 

if it is within a systemic regulator, housed within a systemic regulator, because a systemic regulator has exactly the same target, 

has the same goals that you have both phrased, and it would, 

therefore, give more of a tool for understanding which data series 

need to be examined, which institutions can be ignored for the moment and would have to be studied later. Without having that 

being decided by the NIF itself, who would not—since it is responding to multiple regulatory inputs but no authority, would not actually be able to coordinate those decisions. 

Senator REED. Thank you. 

Dr. Horne? 

Mr. HORNE. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator REED. Go ahead. 

Mr. HORNE. I appreciate it. Well, I think the words come to my 

mind, and it is probably words you have been hearing often over 

the past few months in particular, and those are the words ‘‘moral 

dilemma.’’ And I think this is what it is all about, and, again, my 

esteemed panelists here have brought up the concept of what I 

think is a moral dilemma. 

You know, if you are inside of an agency whose job is both to 

support the financial markets in terms of being directly involved in 

assisting them in growing and expanding and at the same time 

regulate them, there is a moral dilemma. If you are inside of an 

institution whose goal is to make as much profit as possible and 

at the same time you want to stick within regulatory bounds, you 

have a moral dilemma. 

So the issue that we have—and I can only speak for my company—is our goal is if we do not get the data right, we are dead 

in the water because people will stop buying our data. So our moral 

dilemma is getting the facts correct, and there is no dilemma. We 

either get it right or we get it wrong. And if we get it wrong, we 

are not in business very long. 

So part of the issue that I have is that I do believe that there 

is a need for an independent agency inside of the Government to 

deal with these issues without having to face the moral dilemma. 

I believe that there are issues that have to be faced by Congress, 

and it is going to take a little while for that to gel and come together. In the meanwhile, I do not think you can go and continue 

moving forward with the state of the economy as it is and the current what I call systemic bubbles that are occurring all across the 
25 

country to continue to occur without having the information necessary to at least in the short term provide information above 

where you currently are today. And you are in very many cases at 

a point of stone chisels and knives, I might say, from a data standpoint, turning it into information in comparison to where the commercial market is and the commercial sector is in terms of managing their own information, although I have to say many of these 

companies, as was mentioned earlier, that I know of personally— 

because I worked with them in building some of these systems or 

trying to build some of these systems—are now all of a sudden 

spending hundreds of million dollars revamping their own internal 

risk management and analytic systems, including probably all of 

the top 20 banking and investment firm organizations, have incredible plans moving forward for building their own infrastructures, 

which in the long run the Government actions relative to what 

should be done in terms of capturing this data will probably improve their capabilities and, therefore, improve the trade of information and exchange between the two parties. 

But, again, I think you have a long-run situation where you need 

to get away from the moral dilemma. I think you have a short-run 

situation which is you have got to get the information in the hands 

of the people who can do something about it sooner rather than 

later, because there are other bubbles on the horizon that could 

pop, and unless you know that they are happening, unless you understand them, unless you address them, and unless you spend less 

money than just throwing it at the whole market, you spend it at 

the appropriate places, you are going to have greater pushback 

from the taxpayer in terms of being able to have the tools in your 

possession to be able to do the things that you want to do. 

Senator REED. Thank you. Senator Corker. 

Senator CORKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank each of 

you for outstanding testimony. There is something very appealing 

about the presentation which is—and we thank you for spending 

so much time in our personal office talking about it. I know Senator Reed feels the same way, I am sure. And then there is a piece 

of it that is almost kind of an eerie feeling. On the other hand, it 

is sort of the chaos of the market system and the companies you 

are talking about, Mr. Horne, investing that money to figure out 

ways of getting a tenth—just a little tenth of a point off, and they 

are taking advantage of anomalies that exist to make money, and 

I mean that in a positive way, OK? And then, on the other hand, 

we are talking about Professor Liechty creating models, if you will. 

You talk a little bit about NOAA, and NOAA is an interesting analogy except that NOAA is sort of talking about what is going to happen with the weather, and there is nothing you can do about it. I 

mean, it is just going to happen. 

On the other hand, you are talking about setting up models to 

keep anomalies or huge systemic risk occurrences from happening, 

and I guess how do you, when you are designing these models, 

keep yourself from sort of interfering from this chaos that can be 

positive or actually sort of creating self-fulfilling prophecies in some 

ways by virtue of the modeling that you set up? 

Mr. LIECHTY. That is an excellent question. It really is, because 

it comes to the heart of—this analogy does break down when you 
26 

start thinking about the financial system because it is not a bunch 

of pressure systems and equations that you can model. It is just 

much more complicated than that. It is a game, really, is what you 

are thinking about, a very large-scale game. 

And I think if you borrow from the general scientific tradition, 

the first thing that you try to do in science is understand and explain. The second thing you try to do is predict. And then, finally, 

you see if you can have any level of control. It is kind of this progressive improvement that happens in your ability to gain scientific 

knowledge and understanding about a system. 

I am not sure how far we can go in terms of that path. I really— 

I am not certain because we haven’t gone down that path in the 

research sense. But I think there are a lot of things you can borrow 

because it is a game, and if we begin to study it from a number 

of different perspectives and build a competing set of models. 

I want to just kind of echo what Governor Tarullo said and what 

Professor Engle said, is that you really do want—even to have this 

independent, you do want to have multiple people contributing to 

it. You can take, for example, kind of the hurricane modeling approach. There is not one model that is used to model hurricanes. 

When they start looking at hurricanes, they use a collection of competing models that then give them a multiple set of perspectives 

about how that hurricane is approaching and the impact. 

Now, would we potentially impact—I mean, would the National 

Institute of Finance or a systemic regulator potentially impact the 

path of the economy if they interceded in certain ways? That is a 

very hard question for me to answer. I am not sure. But I do believe that we can start to find answers to those kind of questions 

if we set up this kind of analysis. And we can at least, if we do 

no more than we do with the weather and begin to understand 

when there are really serious risks, when we learn how to potentially prepare ourselves better for those type of events that are occurring, then I think we will have made important progress in this 

arena. 

Senator CORKER. If you are setting up models, though, to try to 

ensure that a systemic risk does not occur and information is being 

made public, do you not automatically in some ways affect the 

economy or affect at least financial markets? I mean, how can you 

not do that if that information is being made public? It seems that 

is self-evident that that is going to occur. 

Mr. LIECHTY. Well, I think that for the large—when people approach the financial markets, they typically approach from the statistical perspective. Even though it is a whole bunch of individual 

agents interacting with each other, it is too complicated typically 

to really model effectively. There are some folks at Los Alamos and 

there is a really big simulation study over in Tokyo. I know there 

are IBMs involved with where they are trying to do Asian-based 

modeling. But typically, you have to sit back and look at aggregate 

summaries and model it from that perspective. 

Now, we have a lot of information that is already about the financial markets that is widely disseminated and we would be talking about adding additional information on top of that. 

I think where you start to begin to have problems or people begin 

to influence is if you have people all doing the same type of behav-
27 

iors, so lots of people are making mortgage-backed securities and 

securitizing them and selling them off to pension fund, and there 

are lots of similar behaviors happening and then a shock comes 

through and everybody has to respond in a similar fashion. Then, 

in some sense, the model collapses down to a much simpler system 

because everyone is forced into a corner in the way they are going 

to have to behave. 

For the most part, I think giving more information and trying to 

model it is not going to have an impact, because I don’t know that 

anybody is going to really have the ability to nudge the system one 

way or another. But what you hope you will find is when the system gets to a point where there, in essence, are bubbles that could 

be collapsing and what might trigger those bubbles, how you respond to that is going to be very carefully thought about, and is 

going to have to be very carefully thought about by the systemic 

regulator and the other regulators when they have that information. Do they want to talk to banks quietly? Do they want to make 

a public announcement? These are things that you are going to 

have to think very carefully about, and I am not prepared to lay 

the guidelines out right now. 

Senator CORKER. So you are not really thinking about creating 

a world full of elevator music or anything. We would still have 

some degree of chaos in the marketplace. 

Mr. LIECHTY. Yes, sir. It would be very complicated. 

Senator CORKER. OK. Professor Engle, it sounds like you want to 

respond to this, and you are welcome to do that, but you also mentioned about making information available. Just for laymen like 

myself that obviously are at a whole different level as far as 

mathematic modeling and all that, what would be—for other Senators who might be tuned in, staffs or whatever—what would be 

the first three pieces of public information you think that might 

come out of an institute like this that would be helpful for people 

to know? 

Mr. ENGLE. Well, I think what I was going to say before is also 

related to this. The systemic regulator is going to have to use the 

incentives in the marketplace to achieve his goals. He is not going 

to be able to just legislate one thing or another, and our use of capital standards, capital controls, are ways of trying to nudge the institutions to take less risk or change their behavior in one way or 

another. Systemic taxes are very much designed to encourage institutions who have systemic risk to avoid the taxes by shedding the 

systemic risk if you can define and devise the systemic tax in exactly that way. 

The reason I think that making data public is useful is quite easily seen in the OTC derivatives market, where every time you enter 

a contract, you have a counterparty. And this counterparty has a 

risk that they will not perform. If the derivative turns out to have 

the value you want it to, then your counterparty may not perform. 

So we have to consider there being these extra risks, and it is 

very hard to assess the risk that your counterparty is going to be 

there if you don’t know very much about what the counterparty is 

doing. So if we had more information on the health of counterparties, in other words, how much exposure they had to these same 

kinds of contracts, then the prices of the same deal with two dif-
28 

ferent counterparties might not be the same. There would be a risk 

premium and you could decide whether you wanted to take the 

weak counterparty or the strong counterparty and you would get 

a different price in those contracts. 

That way, you would understand what risks you were taking and 

the weak counterparties would not be able to amass big positions. 

The poster child for this example is AIG, who, of course, wrote lots 

of credit default swaps but didn’t have enough capital behind it, 

and investment bankers and final users bought a great deal of 

these contracts and insurance products without recognizing that actually they should have gotten a big discount on getting them because they weren’t really so likely to pay off because AIG had such 

a big position. 

So if you could make public information on a basis which said, 

for each counterparty, how exposed is this counterparty—how 

many positions does this counterparty have maybe a week ago on 

these kinds of contracts? This would give the market a way of evaluating the risk that they were taking with each counterparty. I 

think it would also encourage trades to move toward exchanges or 

centralized counterparty where you might not have to produce this 

information. 

So I think that the transparency has a dual role in this case. It 

would encourage the migration of products to centralized clearing, 

which is something that we think would reduce systemic risk, and 

it would allow investors to understand the risks and price the risks 

they are taking better and thereby both of these would reduce systemic risk. 

Senator CORKER. Professor Liechty, I have two more questions. 

Senator REED. Go right ahead. 

Senator CORKER. Professor Liechty, how long would it take—you 

know, we talked a little bit about this in the office, but let us say 

something like this became law in the summer of 2010. How long 

would it take before an entity like this was at least providing some 

of the basic information, not data, but information that would be 

useful to someone who is looking at systemic risk or other prudential regulators? 

Mr. LIECHTY. Sure. I am not an expert in this, but I have spoken 

to a number of folks who built up large institutions and teams of 

this nature. It does speak to the fact that you really want this institution to be an institution of very high stature. You want very 

high-quality individuals in this. To the extent you can build a 

world-class institution, it works in favor, I think, of all of us in the 

economy. 

The way you would start out, of course, is you would take existing data that is in the marketplace that you can find, pull together 

many of the ways that Steve is talking about, and augment that 

potentially with other types of reports you could require from the 

banks that would be fairly straightforward. I believe within 18 

months to 2 years, you would be able to put together some preliminary, rudimentary maps of the entire system. You would be able 

to start seeing things like aggregation, some of the really simple 

low-hanging fruit. Everybody is heading in the same way in a 

trade, or someone has got outstanding positions that are really too 

large for that institution, like the AIG example. 
29 

You would then, I believe, move yourself toward integrating 

counterparty information that is in the repositories, DTCC and the 

other clearinghouses, and I would see this being multi-stage, multiyear. So you would have a focus initially as to what can you get 

from the existing data and what science do we need and models do 

we need to build from that. You might be able to borrow from existing models and augment those. And then you will have another 

path, in my view, that would be doing longer-term, more sustained 

research. 

I would imagine that it would probably take somewhere, 6 to 8 

years, in that timeframe, to see yourself walk all the way up to the 

full vision that we would see with a National Institute of Finance 

where you have a very fine-grained view of the entire counterparty 

network and be able to do large-scale simulations to understand 

how different types of shocks to the economy might work through 

that network and where the critical points of that network are and 

how they might have cascading failures or where you might see liquidity crises occur. 

But I would envision within 8, potentially 10 years, you would 

see a fully functioning institute, and certainly along the line you 

would see some very valuable information come out within shorter 

timeframes. 

Senator CORKER. Thank you very much, and go ahead, Mr. 

Horne. 

Mr. HORNE. Yes, Senator, if I may add, I think the difference between what we are talking about here is mostly the fact that the 

NIF, I think—and again, this is my opinion, I am not going to 

speak on their behalf—but they are really talking about building 

a very structured approach toward managing risk, standing back 

and building models that can take all different sorts of views and 

all sorts of different looks at this problem and over periods of time 

be able to ascertain how to best approach these problems from an 

academic and regulatory approach. 

What we are trying to do, which is a little different, in the shortterm and hopefully becomes a foundation or platform for what 

eventually the NIF is trying to do, and I don’t know if the two 

pieces will ultimately fit together, but I do believe that we are extensible where that is a possibility, is that the data that is available right now today is capable of being integrated into a platform 

where regulators can start looking at the governance rules that are 

in place today and start figuring out, just as compensation analysts 

do, just as people who have to deal with the same problems. 

If you think about a compensation analyst inside of a large corporation, you have a huge sales force that is saying, OK, I am 

going to try to break every rule I possibly can so I can make the 

most money I possibly can, and I am not concerned about profit because it is not built into my compensation. Well, some portion of 

their compensation ends up having profit built into it. Then they 

say, well, wait a minute. I am not responsible for all the mechanisms that drive my product, so therefore maybe I shouldn’t be responsible for profit. So you start getting into all these different 

types of analogies of how you should compensate people and how 

you should incent people to move forward. 
30 

Well, the same issue is true in the financial markets. This moral 

dilemma that I brought up earlier is the same problem. You 

brought up the issue to Professor Engle about the fact, well, 

couldn’t you—or to Professor Liechty—couldn’t you actually influence what these markets do? And what I am thinking is it would 

be better to use the nearer-term, the shorter-term data that we are 

talking about now to try to help with some of the governance and 

regulatory rules to get people on the same path and same direction, 

and possibly those are things looking at specific pieces of law today 

that, you know, may be in conflict with systemic risk. 

The uptick law, for example, and I don’t know how familiar you 

all are, but with shorting issues out there, you know, that could be 

a major driver of systemic risk. As a weighted value in a model, 

if you were to take that out and put that in, you may find that 

right off the bat, there is a factor there that maybe should be reconsidered relative to law. 

And what I am saying is from a governance perspective, if you 

have the information in the short-term to be able to do some of 

these things, then these models become incredibly valuable over 

time because they start really showing the dynamics and the interconnections and all the points of potential failure that can exist 

within the market. 

But in the near term, you have got to use some of the information that can be converted out of the data to figure out how to manage. And I am not talking about big government. I am not a big 

believer in big government. I am a believer in better government 

and better governance. And what I believe we have got right now 

is a lot of broad-stroke rules that don’t allow for the surgical precision of attacking the problems where they exist. And with this information, you would have the ability to do so, and that is the difference between what we have today and what we could have. 

And by going through this process of cutting out certain things 

that make no sense whatsoever and maybe putting some governance back into the process, we could be on the same page so that 

the institutions and the government and the taxpayer are not facing the moral dilemma with each other. 

Senator CORKER. I noticed Professor Mendelowitz. 

Mr. MENDELOWITZ. Thank you. I really would like to go back to 

one of the issues you raised a few minutes back about interfering 

in the market. We rely on markets, in this case financial markets, 

to allocate capital because they do it efficiently, and we know from 

history when other societies have tried to rely on command and 

control systems to do those kind of functions, they failed miserably. 

But for financial markets or any other kind of market to do its 

job, which is to allocate scarce resources efficiently, there have to 

be a number of conditions met that make it possible for the markets to do that, and as you well know, if they are not present, the 

markets can’t. 

The challenge in financial markets is that it is clear, and this recent crisis is the most glaring example of it, financial markets are 

prone to the financial equivalent of sudden cardiac arrest, and I 

would like to take credit for that, but it wasn’t my analogy. It was 

a professor at MIT who came up with it. And that government 
31 

intervention was needed to deal with this equivalent of sudden cardiac arrest. 

Now, maybe extending the analogy is a bit much, but there was 

a time when if you suffered sudden cardiac arrest, there wasn’t 

much the medical profession could do for you. Then we moved to 

a stage where there are some sort of dramatic interventions at the 

point of a heart attack. Until now we are at the situation where 

you stave off sudden cardiac arrest with long-term care. You take 

statins to lower cholesterol and vulnerability. You are more careful 

about what you eat. You exercise, a little bit healthier lifestyle. 

And you, in effect, are able to reduce the risk of the sudden cardiac 

arrest. 

What we are talking about with what the NIF can contribute is, 

in fact, the sort of financial market equivalent of a healthier lifestyle, to preserve the efficiencies that you get out of the financial 

markets. 

Senator CORKER. Thank you very much. I know I have gone on 

for a long time and I am sure you have a number of questions. 

Senator REED. I don’t. If you have additional questions, Bob, go 

ahead, please. 

Senator CORKER. I have lots of questions. We spent a great deal 

of time with each of you and I have gotten a chance to know you, 

and I am sure that Courtney and Michael and Arlene and others 

will be talking with you over the course of the next week or so. 

I would ask, Mr. Horne, you mentioned you were looking at housing in North Carolina and Tennessee. I don’t know for what reason. 

Maybe to purchase, I hope. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CORKER. But I wondered if you would tell me why and 

what you found. I wouldn’t be a good Senator from Tennessee if I 

didn’t ask. 

Mr. HORNE. Well, I appreciate that, and I am sorry that I didn’t 

put it into the rest of my speech, but I thought just putting it out 

there would bring a question about it. 

We look at leading indicators, and part of the issue that we have 

is that we have to look at these leading indicators today manually 

because they are in separate pieces of—or separate systems. So we 

look at the housing systems that we have access to and we have 

virtually every parcel of land in the country identified. And we 

know those that are in foreclosure. We know those that are underwater relative to the mortgages. And we understand those that are 

delinquent on their mortgage payments. 

One of the key ratios in North Carolina and Tennessee that are 

leading indicators to us is the 90-day delinquency rate on mortgage 

payments. Relative to the peers—although across the country, if 

you look at the chart, States like Nevada, Arizona, Florida have 

huge market viability from a—or market problems, market viability issues from being upside down in their mortgages. In Nevada, 

for example, seven out of ten homes are in negative value relative 

to the mortgages that exist for those properties. 

In Tennessee and in North Carolina, you are right around the 

national average. You are about 33 percent of the homes in your 

State and in North Carolina are right around the national average. 

But relative to your peers, the 90-day delinquency rate over the 
32 

last 3 months has increased dramatically, OK. So that shows me 

that there is a leading indicator out there that says that people are 

not able to pay their mortgages. So I start with that one. 

Then I look at plant closings and failures and shifts in unemployment. Now, it doesn’t mean the unemployment rolls immediately go 

up, but it shows me as a leading indicator that there is going to 

be a possibility that the unemployment rolls are going to go up. So 

I start looking at that as a leading indicator to unemployment. 

Then I look at bankruptcy and I start looking in the retail sector, 

in particular. And I think you heard from the Congressional Oversight Panel, or at least if you were able to read any of the report, 

that commercial failure particularly in the retail sector is up, and 

that is also a leading indicator of the potential of people not having 

available cash because they are either temporarily or potentially 

for long-term unemployed and therefore start becoming delinquent 

on bills such as their mortgages. 

We don’t have the database built yet, so I can’t just run a model 

and 20 seconds later come up with every county or every Congressional district in the State of Tennessee and tell you exactly what 

the combination of those factors in that model would tell us in 

terms of the potential for systemic risk or failure of any of those 

given markets. But I can tell you from leading indicators that these 

are pieces of information that are telling me that there are potentials for problems out there, and particularly the 90-day delinquency risk factor, which is one of the ones that we weight relatively heavily relative to some of the other factors, is a leading indicator that is telling us people are having a difficult time paying 

their bills. 

And so that is why I bring that up and that is why I say in those 

two States, because relative to other States who are in the same 

range of being underwater on their properties, don’t have the same 

delinquency rate problems that those two States are currently facing. 

Senator CORKER. Well, thank you. I almost wish I didn’t ask, but 

thank you. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. HORNE. I am sorry. 

Senator CORKER. I will say this, though. That example, I think, 

Senator Reed—first of all, I want to thank you again for your leadership on this and trying to figure out a solution on the derivatives 

side. I think, though, that answer, irrespective of the not-good news 

that is relayed there, is an indication of some of the kinds of data 

that one might generate and could, in fact, be useful, even though 

I know you are looking at different types of financial instruments. 

I appreciate that explanation and I thank you so much for your 

generosity of time, Senator. 

Senator REED. Certainly, Senator. Thank you for your leadership 

on this and so many other issues involved in banking and other 

challenges facing the country. 

I don’t want to ask any more questions about specific localities, 

Mr. Horne. 

[Laughter.] 
33 

Senator REED. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but given your 

access to all this data, when did you and your colleagues first get 

the sense that there was a national housing problem? 

Mr. HORNE. I have known that there has been a national housing 

problem since the first time that our partners—we have over 900 

data partners that we work with. One of our largest data partners 

is First American CoreLogic, which is the largest collector of deed, 

tax, and mortgage roll property information in the country. So 

when I started analyzing their data and combining it with Dow 

Jones information about the individual market segments and the 

tremendous volumes—I mean, we collect terabytes and terabytes of 

information—and start looking at the various factors that we call 

trigger events—these are things that occur that show an action 

taking place that is either positive or potentially adverse actions— 

we saw this occurring, frankly, before 2007. We actually saw the 

bubble before the bubble and could tell some of these things were 

starting to happen. 

The problem, again, is this is macro data. When they roll it up 

and look at it, they usually look at it within the housing market, 

within the specific segment of the database that they have, and we 

haven’t brought it together with our unemployment findings, with 

our bankruptcy findings, with our commercial real estate information to separate it from the residential real estate information. And 

this disaggregation of information in these individual silos prevent 

us from being able to do, except through very extensive manual efforts, the ability to bring this data together in a way so we actually 

can build real models on the symbiosis, the systemic issues that 

are occurring between all these different factors in the marketplace. 

The systemic issues that occur within an institution and institutions, which I think we are talking about here, between the majors, 

the Citicorps, the JPMorgans, the AIGs, are extensive and we understand that they are very complex and the counterparty risks 

there are very difficult to track, particularly if you don’t have access to all of the other pieces of information. 

Now, we have large amounts of information regarding derivative 

data, regarding all sorts of different kinds of financial instruments, 

but it is only segments of the market. We don’t have all of it because not all of it is available, even in public or private data. So 

part of the issue here is the investment that needs to be done to 

actually build the database. 

Senator REED. Well, I don’t—we have taken a great deal of your 

time and it has been extremely valuable, so thank you. But I don’t 

sense there is a mutually exclusive sort of agenda here. I think we 

are talking about the same thing, which is building in the short 

term an information gathering and an analytical capability that 

will help us, but in the longer term, getting to the point where it 

is just not prediction, there might be even some treatment involved, which is the point you made. 

Dr. Mendelowitz, a final point. 

Mr. MENDELOWITZ. Yes, Senator. This discussion about the housing bubble, I think, gives us an insight into what the need for the 

NIF is. While Steve said back in 2007 he saw it, those of you—but 

basically 5 years ago, I started predicting a major credit event in 
34 

the housing sector that was going to push the economy into the 

worst recession since the Second World War, and it was really just 

based upon looking at relatively small data sets that went to what 

was happening to housing prices, what was happening to household 

income, and what was happening on the delinquency and default 

rate on mortgages, all of which was readily available data. 

So it was easy to predict a major credit event in housing and it 

was easy to predict, because of the widespread nature of home ownership, that this was going to lead to a recession that was going 

to be driven by falling consumption. That was the easy piece of it. 

Now we are saying the fact the Fed didn’t see it, because they 

were using the standard monetarist model, and if you can’t see 

something with the monetarist model, you don’t see it. 

But what I didn’t see and couldn’t see and couldn’t understand 

was how what was happening in the housing sector was going to 

lead to the collapse in the financial sector. And it is the kind of 

data that we are talking about the NIF collecting that would provide that insight, and there is no substitute for that. There is no 

alternative. There is no shortcut. Because at the end of the day, 

you have to know where the concentrations of risks are and you 

have to know what the nature of the intertwined network of financial firms and their obligations are, because it is the combination 

of concentrations of risk and the exposure of the network that can 

produce a domino effect of multiple failures that creates a systemic 

risk. 

And so it is one thing to see a macroeconomic crisis tied to something like housing. It is something entirely different—the data 

needs are entirely different when it comes to understanding the 

systemic risk that flows from those concentrations of risk. 

Senator REED. I want to thank you all for excellent testimony, 

thought provoking, and also for your advancing this issue. I think 

we leave here with, one, we need better data. We need better analysis. And if we don’t achieve it in the next several months, the bubbles that might be out there percolating, if that is the right term, 

will once again catch us by surprise and we shouldn’t let that happen. But thank you all very, very much. Thank you. 

Mr. MENDELOWITZ. Thank you. 

Mr. HORNE. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator REED. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:33 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 
35 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN EVAN BAYH 

Pre–Opening Remarks 

Good morning. I am pleased to call to order this Subcommittee for a hearing entitled ‘‘Equipping Financial Regulators with the Tools Necessary to Monitor Systemic 

Risk.’’ I want to thank the Ranking Member, Senator Corker, and his staff, for requesting this hearing on an issue that may seem technical to some, but will prove 

critical as we work to reform and modernize our regulatory structure for the future. 

I would also like to welcome and thank Senator Jack Reed. He has been instrumental on the technical and analytic aspects of systemic risk regulation, specifically 

on the proposal of a National Institute of Finance. I am happy to continue the dialog 

he has already begun on how we equip our regulators to move beyond examining 

individual institutions and toward monitoring and managing systemic risk across 

our financial system. 

To our witnesses that will appear on two separate panels, welcome and thank you 

for appearing before the subcommittee to give an outline on regulators’ current capabilities to collect and analyze financial market data; and most importantly, what 

additional resources and capabilities are necessary to provide effective systemic risk 

regulation. I understand that the weather in Washington the last few days has not 

been ideal, so I appreciate the dedication you have all show in making it here today. 

Before we turn to Governor Tarullo, I would like to make a few remarks on why 

this issue is essential to the safety and soundness of our financial system moving 

forward. 

Opening Statement 

Over a year ago, our country experienced a financial crisis that exposed the complexity and interconnectedness of our financial system and markets. The 

globalization of financial services and the increasing size and intricacy of major 

market players enabled the buildup and transferring of risk that was not fully recognized or understood by our regulators, or, in some cases, by the institutions themselves. These vulnerabilities made it clear to policymakers here in Washington that 

our financial system, as whole, needs its own overseer. As a result, systemic risk 

regulation has become a central part of our efforts to modernize our financial regulatory system. 

Creating a new regulatory structure to monitor systemic risk is no easy task. My 

colleagues here in the Banking Committee, including Chairman Dodd, Senators 

Corker, Reed and Warner have been working diligently to determine what tools and 

technical capabilities may be necessary for the regulation of systemic financial risk. 

To that end, the National Research Council held a workshop in November at the 

request of Senator Reed to identify the major technical challenges to building that 

capacity. While it is clear that our regulatory system currently lacks the technical 

resources to monitor and manage risk with sufficient sophistication and comprehensiveness, we should figure out what capabilities our regulators currently have. That 

involves assessing what data and analytical tools are currently available to regulators to collect real-time, consistent market data. We have Governor Tarullo here 

to discuss what data and analytical methodologies prudential regulators currently 

have in place to see real-time financial market data and how our current financial 

regulators collaborate in aggregating and analyzing data. 

Next, we can focus on the biggest challenge of this exercise—determining what 

further capabilities are necessary, as well as identifying the barriers and challenges 

to meeting the goals of systemic risk regulation. This involves much more than aggregating information, but making sure we are filling the information gaps, asking 

the right questions, and putting that information into the broader context of the risk 

dynamics in the system. Currently, risk analysis has developed solely to manage 

firm-specific risks. That approach needs to evolve beyond the individual institution, 

and work to include the complex interaction and linkages amongst the system to 

assemble a holistic perspective. 

In debating the capabilities needed, the next obvious question centers on developing the right infrastructure for the enhanced data aggregation, mathematical 

modeling and all the other issues that go into systemic risk regulation. 

An idea that has the support of six Nobel Laureates, including Professor Engle 

who is on our second panel this afternoon, is the creation of a National Institute 

of Finance. Supported by the Committee to Establish the National Institute of Finance, this proposal urges the creation of an independent institute to collect and 

standardize the reporting of financial market data, as well as develop tools for 

measuring and monitoring systemic risk. On February 4th, my colleague Senator 

Reed introduced legislation to create such an institute. We have some of the found-
36 

ers of that Committee with us today to outline what they envision in the creation 

of an independent NIF. 

I am also open to other ideas, including whether or not a separate additional 

agency is necessary or if these new technical capabilities can be housed in an existing independent Federal agency, such as the Federal Reserve. I look forward to 

hearing our witnesses’ perspective on this issue, as well. 

Lastly, in a discussion on systemic risk and data aggregation, we would be remiss 

to ignore the international implications to our domestic systemic risk regulation. As 

I’ve said before, we live in an interconnected global economy, and as we’ve seen, 

that means interconnected global problems. Vulnerabilities and gaps in financial 

markets abroad, can impact us here at home. A key element of this discussion 

should focus on how we encourage global financial market reporting, aggregating 

and analytic capabilities, as well as identifying any legal or legislative barriers to 

international data sharing. 

Ultimately, all of us here know our country cannot afford another financial crisis 

that will have a devastating impact on household wealth, unemployment and our 

economy, at large. While seemingly technical in nature, these issues are critical to 

our national interest and necessary to strengthen and provide credibility to our financial system. I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure these issues 

are addressed in our comprehensive regulatory reform bill. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DANIEL K. TARULLO 

MEMBER, BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM

FEBRUARY 12, 2010 

Chairman Bayh, Ranking Member Corker, and other members of the Committee, 

thank you for inviting me to testify today. I also want to thank all of you for taking 

the time to explore a subject that is easily overlooked in the public debate around 

financial reform, but that will be central to ensuring a more stable financial system 

in the future. 

The recent financial crisis revealed important gaps in data collection and systematic analysis of institutions and markets. Remedies to fill those gaps are critical for 

monitoring systemic risk and for enhanced supervision of systemically important financial institutions, which are in turn necessary to decrease the chances of such a 

serious crisis occurring in the future. The Federal Reserve believes that the goals 

of agency action and legislative change should be (1) to ensure that supervisory 

agencies have access to high-quality and timely data that are organized and standardized so as to enhance their regulatory missions, and (2) to make such data available in appropriately usable form to other government agencies and private analysts 

so that they can conduct their own analyses and raise their own concerns about financial trends and developments. 

In my testimony this morning I will first review the data collection and analysis 

activities of the Federal Reserve that are relevant to systemic risk monitoring and 

explain why we believe additional data should be collected by regulatory authorities 

with responsibility for financial stability. Next I will set forth some principles that 

we believe should guide efforts to achieve the two goals I have just noted. Finally, 

I will describe current impediments to these goals and suggest some factors for the 

Congress to consider as it evaluates potential legislation to improve the monitoring 

and containment of systemic risk. 

The Federal Reserve and Macro-Prudential Supervision 

The Federal Reserve has considerable experience in data collection and reporting 

in connection with its regulation and supervision of financial institutions, monetary 

policy deliberations, and lender-of-last-resort responsibilities. The Federal Reserve 

has made large investments in quantitative and qualitative analysis of the U.S. 

economy, financial markets, and financial institutions. The Federal Reserve also has 

recently initiated some new data collection and analytical efforts as it has responded 

to the crisis and in anticipation of new financial and economic developments. 

For supervision of the largest institutions, new quantitative efforts have been 

started to better measure counterparty credit risk and interconnectedness, market 

risk sensitivities, and funding and liquidity. The focus of these efforts is not only 

on risks to individual firms, but also on concentrations of risk that may arise 

through common exposures or sensitivity to common shocks. For example, additional 

loan-level data on bank exposures to syndicated corporate loans are now being collected in a systematic manner that will allow for more timely and consistent measurement of individual bank and systemic exposures to these sectors. In addition, detailed data obtained from firms’ risk-management systems allow supervisors to ex-
37 

amine concentration risk and interconnectedness. Specifically, supervisors are aggregating, where possible, the banks’ largest exposures to other banks, nonbank financial institutions, and corporate borrowers, which could be used to reveal large 

exposures to individual borrowers that the banks have in common or to assess the 

credit impact of a failure of a large bank on other large banks. Additional time and 

experience with these data will allow us to assess the approach’s ability to signal 

adverse events, and together they will be a critical input to designing a more robust 

and consistent reporting system. 

Furthermore, we are collecting data on banks’ trading and securitization risk exposures as part of an ongoing, internationally coordinated effort to improve regulatory capital standards in these areas. Moreover, analysis of liquidity risk now incorporates more explicitly the possibility of marketwide shocks to liquidity. This effort also is an example of the importance of context and the need to understand the 

firms’ internal risk models and risk-management systems in designing data collection requirements. Data that only capture a set of positions would not be sufficient 

since positions would not incorporate behavioral assumptions about firms, based on 

information about firms’ business models and practices. 

The Federal Reserve’s responsibilities for monetary policy are also relevant for 

systemic risk monitoring. Systemic risk involves the potential for financial crises to 

result in substantial adverse effects on economic activity. As the nation’s central 

bank, the Federal Reserve assesses and forecasts the U.S. and global economies 

using a wide variety of data and analytical tools, some based on specific sectors and 

others on large-scale models. In the wake of the crisis, research has been expanded 

to better understand the channels from the financial sector to the real economy. For 

example, building on lessons from the recent crisis, the Federal Reserve added questions to the Survey of Professional Forecasters to elicit from private-sector forecasters their subjective probabilities of forecasts of key macroeconomic variables, 

which provides to us, and to the public, better assessments of the likelihood of severe macroeconomic outcomes. 

The Federal Reserve has made substantial investments in data and analytical 

staff for financial market monitoring. Each day, the Trading Desk at the Federal 

Reserve Bank of New York analyzes and internally distributes reports on market 

developments, focusing on those markets where prices and volumes are changing 

rapidly, where news or policy is having a major effect, or where there are special 

policy concerns. Those analyses begin with quantitative data, supplemented with information obtained through conversations with market participants and reviews of 

other analyses available in the market. Over the past few years, the Desk has 

worked closely with our research staff in developing new quantitative tools and new 

data sources. 

This ongoing monitoring requires continual evaluation of new data sources and 

analytical tools to develop new data as new markets and practices develop. For example, information on market volumes and prices can be collected from new trading 

platforms and brokers, data on instruments such as credit default swaps, or CDS, 

are provided by vendors or market participants, and fresh insights are gained from 

new methods of extracting information from options data. In some cases, publication 

of data by the private sector may be mandated by legislation (such as, potentially, 

trade data from over-the-counter derivatives trade repositories); in other cases, the 

Federal Reserve or other government agencies or regulators require or encourage 

the gathering and publication of data. 

Our experiences with supervision, monetary policy, and financial market monitoring suggest that market data gathering and market oversight responsibilities 

must continuously inform one another. In addition, efforts to identify stresses in the 

system are not a matter of running a single model or focusing on a single risk. Rather, it is the assembly of many types of analysis in a systematic fashion. The Supervisory Capital Assessment Program (SCAP) for large financial institutions—popularly known as the ‘‘stress test’’ when it was conducted early last year—illustrates 

the importance of combining analysis by credit experts, forecasts and scenario design by macroeconomists, and hands-on judgments by supervisors in assessing the 

financial condition and potential vulnerabilities of large financial institutions. 

While considerable steps have been made in the wake of the financial crisis, the 

Federal Reserve intends to do a good deal more. The Federal Reserve also will continue to strengthen and expand its supervisory capabilities with a macroprudential 

approach by drawing on its considerable data reporting, gathering, and analytical 

capabilities across many disciplines. In the areas in which we are collecting data 

through the supervisory process on measures of interlinkages and common exposures among the largest financial firms we supervise, we are developing new analytical tools that may lead us to change our information requests from supervised 

firms. The Federal Reserve is exploring how to develop analytically sophisticated 
38 

measures of leverage and better measures of maturity transformation from information that we can collect from the supervised firms in the supervisory process and 

from other available data and analysis. We envision developing a robust set of key 

indicators of emerging risk concentrations and market stresses that would both supplement existing supervisory techniques and assist in the early identification of 

early trends that may have systemic significance and bear further inquiry. This 

kind of approach will require data that are produced more frequently than the often 

quarterly data gathered in regulatory reports, although not necessarily real-time or 

intraday, and reported soon after the fact, without the current, often long, reporting 

lags. These efforts will need to actively seek international cooperation as financial 

firms increasingly operate globally. 

The Potential Benefits of Additional Data 

Improved data are essential for monitoring systemic risk and for implementing a 

macroprudential approach to supervision. The financial crisis highlighted the existence of interlinkages across financial institutions and between financial institutions 

and markets. Credit risks were amplified by leverage and the high degree of maturity transformation, especially outside of traditional commercial banking institutions. Moreover, supervision traditionally has tended to focus on the validity of regulated firms’ private risk-management systems, which did not easily allow comparisons and aggregation across firms. 

One key feature of the recent crisis was the heavy reliance on short-term sources 

of funds to purchase long-term assets, which led to a poor match between the maturity structure of the firms’ assets and liabilities. Such maturity transformation is 

inherently fragile and leaves institutions and entire markets susceptible to runs. Indeed, a regulatory, supervisory, and insurance framework was created during the 

Great Depression to counter this problem at depository institutions. However, in recent years a significant amount of maturity transformation took place outside the 

traditional banking system—in the so-called shadow banking system—through the 

use of commercial paper, repurchase agreements, and other instruments. Our ability 

to monitor the size and extent of maturity transformation has been hampered by 

the lack of high-quality and consistent data on these activities. Better data on the 

sources and uses of maturity transformation outside of supervised banking organizations would greatly aid macroprudential supervision and systemic risk regulation. 

Another feature of the recent crisis was the extensive use of leverage, often in conjunction with maturity transformation. The consequences of this combination were 

dramatic. When doubts arose about the quality of the assets on shadow banking system balance sheets, a classic adverse feedback loop ensued in which lenders were 

increasingly unwilling to roll over the short-term debt that was used as funding. Liquidity-constrained institutions were forced to sell assets at increasingly distressed 

prices, which accelerated margin calls for leveraged actors and amplified mark-tomarket losses for all holders of the assets, including regulated firms. Here, too, government regulators and supervisors had insufficient data to determine the degree 

and location of leverage in the financial system. 

More generally, the crisis revealed that regulators, supervisors, and market participants could not fully measure the extent to which financial institutions and markets were linked. A critical lesson from this crisis is that supervisors and investors 

need to be able to more quickly evaluate the potential effects, for example, of the 

possible failure of a specific institution on other large firms through counterparty 

credit channels; financial markets; payment, clearing, and settlement arrangements; 

and reliance on common sources of short-term funding. 

A better system of data collection and aggregation would have manifold benefits, 

particularly if the data are shared appropriately among financial regulators and 

with a systemic risk council if one is created. It would enable regulators and a council to assess and compare risks across firms, markets, and products. It would improve risk management by firms themselves by requiring standardized and efficient 

collection of relevant financial information. It also would enhance the ability of the 

government to wind down systemically important firms in a prompt and orderly 

fashion by providing policymakers a clearer view of the potential impacts of different resolution options on the broader financial system. 

Additional benefits would result from making data public to the degree consistent 

with protecting firm-specific proprietary and supervisory information. Investors and 

analysts would have a more complete picture of individual firms’ strengths and 

vulnerabilities, thereby contributing to better market discipline. Other government 

agencies, academics, and additional interested parties would be able to conduct their 

own analyses of financial system developments and identify possible emerging 

stresses and risks in financial markets. 
39 

One area in which better information is particularly important is the web of connections among financial institutions though channels such as interbank lending, 

securities lending, repurchase agreements, and derivatives contracts. Regulators 

also need more and better data on the links among institutions through third-party 

sponsors, liquidity providers, credit-support providers, and market makers. Knowledge of such network linkages is a necessary first step to improve analysis of how 

shocks to institutions and markets can propagate through the financial system. 

Principles for Developing a System of Effective Data and Analytical Tools 

Moving from the recognition of the need for more data to an efficient data system 

is not an easy task. Data collection entails costs in collection, organization, and utilization for government agencies, reporting market participants, and other interested 

parties. Tradeoffs may need to be faced where, for example, a particular type of information would be very costly to collect and would have only limited benefits. The 

Internet and other applications of information technologies have made us all too 

aware of the potential for information overload, a circumstance in which relevant 

information is theoretically available, but the time and expense of retrieving it or 

transforming it into a usable form make it unhelpful in practical terms. Collection 

of more data just for its own sake also can raise systemic costs associated with 

moral hazard if investors view data collection from certain firms, products, and markets as suggesting implicit support. It is thus particularly worth emphasizing the 

importance of having data available readily and in a form that is appropriate for 

the uses to which it will be put. With these considerations in mind, we have derived 

a number of guiding principles for a system of new data and analytical tools for effectively supervising large institutions and monitoring systemic risk. 

First, the priorities for new data efforts should be determined by the nature of 

regulatory and supervisory missions. In particular, the data need to be sufficiently 

timely and to cover a sufficient range of financial institutions, markets, instruments, 

and transactions to support effective systemic risk monitoring and macroprudential 

supervision, as well as traditional safety-and-soundness regulation. The events of 

the past few years have painfully demonstrated that regulators, financial institutions, and investors lacked ready access to data that would have allowed them to 

fully assess the value of complex securities, understand counterparty risks, or identify concentrations of exposures. 

The data needed for systemic risk monitoring and supervision are not necessarily 

‘‘real-time’’ market data—information about trades and transactions that can be reported at high frequency when the events occur—but certainly data would need to 

be ‘‘timely.’’ What is considered to be ‘‘timely’’ will depend on its purpose, and decisions about how timely the data should be should not ignore the costs of collecting 

and making the data usable. For many supervisory needs, real-time data would be 

impractical to collect and analyze in a meaningful way and unnecessary. For example, while supervisors may indeed need to be able to quickly value the balance 

sheets of systemically important financial institutions, very frequent updates as 

transactions occur and market prices change could lead to more volatility in values 

than fundamental conditions would indicate and would be extraordinarily expensive 

to provide and maintain. Certainly, real-time data could be needed for regulators 

responsible for monitoring market functioning, and daily data would be helpful to 

measure end-of-day payment settlements and risk positions among the largest 

firms. But for supervising market participants, real-time market data could require 

enormous investments by regulators, institutions, and investors in order to be usable while yielding little net benefit. As policymakers consider redesign of a system 

of data collection, the goal should be data that are timely and best suited to the 

mission at hand. 

A second principle is that data collection be user-driven. That is, data on particular markets and institutions should be collected whenever possible by the regulators who ultimately are responsible for the safety and soundness of the institutions or for the functioning of those markets. Regulators with supervisory responsibilities for particular financial firms and markets are more likely to understand 

the relevance of particular forms of standardized data for risk management and supervisory oversight. For example, supervisors regularly evaluate the ability of individual firms’ own risk measures, such as internal ratings for loans, and of liquidity 

and counterparty credit risks, to signal potential problems. As a result, these supervisors have the expertise needed to develop new reporting requirements that would 

be standardized across firms and could be aggregated. 

Third, greater standardization of data than exists today is required. Standardized 

reporting to regulators in a way that allows aggregation for effective monitoring and 

analysis is imperative. In addition, the data collection effort itself should encourage 

the use of common reporting systems across institutions, markets, and investors, 
40 

which would generally enhance efficiency and transparency. Even seemingly simple 

changes, such as requiring the use of a standardized unique identifier for institutions (or instruments), would make surveillance and reporting substantially more efficient. 

Fourth, the data collected and the associated reporting standards and protocols 

should enable better risk management by the institutions themselves and foster 

greater market discipline by investors. Currently, because the underlying data in 

firms’ risk-management systems are incomplete or are maintained in nonstandardized proprietary formats, compiling industry-wide data on counterparty credit risk 

or common exposures is a challenge for both firms and supervisors. Further, institutions and investors cannot easily construct fairly basic measures of common risks 

across firms because they may not disclose sufficient information. In some cases, 

such as disclosure of characteristics of underlying mortgages in a securitized pool, 

more complete and interoperable data collection systems could enhance market discipline by allowing investors to better assess the risks of the securities without compromising proprietary information of the lending institution. 

Fifth, data collection must be nimble, flexible, and statistically coherent. With the 

rapid pace of financial innovation, a risky new asset class can grow from a minor 

issue to a significant threat faster than government agencies have traditionally been 

able to revise reporting requirements. For example, collateralized debt obligations 

based on asset-backed securities grew from a specialized niche product to the largest 

source of funding for asset-backed securities in just a few years. Regulators, then, 

should have the authority to collect information promptly when needed, even when 

such collections would require responses from a broad range of institutions or markets, some of which may not be regulated or supervised. In addition, processes for 

information collection must meet high standards for reliability, coherence, and representativeness. 

Sixth, data collection and aggregation by regulatory agencies must be accompanied by a process for making the data available to as great a degree as possible 

to fellow regulators, other government entities, and the public. There will, of course, 

be a need to protect proprietary and supervisory information, particularly where 

specific firm-based data are at issue. But the presumption should be in favor of 

making information widely available. 

Finally, any data collection and analysis effort must be attentive to its international dimensions and must seek appropriate participation from regulators in 

other nations, especially those with major financial centers. Financial activities and 

risk exposures are increasingly globalized. A system without a common detailed taxonomy for securities and counterparties and comparable requirements for reporting 

across countries would make assembling a meaningful picture of the exposures of 

global institutions very difficult. Efforts to improve data collection are already under 

way in the European Union, by the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority, and the European Central Bank, which has expressed support for developing a unified international system of taxonomy and reporting. The Financial Stability Board, at the request of the G–20, is initiating an international effort to develop a common reporting template and a process to share information on common 

exposures and linkages between systemically important global financial institutions. 

Barriers to Effective Data Collection for Analysis 

Legislation will be needed to improve the ability of regulatory agencies to collect 

the necessary data to support effective supervision and systemic risk monitoring. 

Restrictions designed to balance the costs and benefits of data collection and analysis have not kept pace with rapid changes in the financial system. The financial 

system is likely to continue to change rapidly, and both regulators and market participants need the capacity to keep pace. 

Regulators have been hampered by a lack of authority to collect and analyze information from unregulated entities. But the recent financial crisis illustrated that 

substantial risks from leverage and maturity transformation were outside of regulated financial firms. In addition, much of the Federal Reserve’s collection of data 

is based on voluntary participation. For example, survey data on lending terms and 

standards at commercial banks, lending by finance companies, and transactions in 

the commercial paper market rely on the cooperation of the surveyed entities. Moreover, as we have suggested, the data collection authority of financial regulators over 

the firms they supervise should be expanded to encompass macroprudential considerations. The ability of regulators to collect information should similarly be expanded to include the ability to gather market data necessary for monitoring systemic risks. Doing so would better enable regulators to monitor and assess potential 

systemic risks arising directly from the firms or markets under their supervision or 
41 

from the interaction of these firms or markets with other components of the financial system. 

The Paperwork Reduction Act also can at times impede timely and robust data 

collection. The act generally requires that public notice be provided, and approval 

of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) be obtained, before any information 

requirement is applied to more than nine entities. Over the years, the act’s requirement for OMB approval for information collection activity involving more than nine 

entities has discouraged agencies from undertaking many initiatives and can delay 

the collection of important information in a financial crisis. For example, even a series of informal meetings with more than nine entities designed to learn about 

emerging developments in markets may be subject to the requirements of the act. 

While the principle of minimizing the burdens imposed on private parties is an important one, the Congress should consider amending the act to allow the financial 

supervisory agencies to obtain the data necessary for financial stability in a timely 

manner when needed. One proposed action would be to increase the number of entities from which information can be collected without triggering the act; another 

would be to permit special data requests of the systemically important institutions 

could be conducted more quickly and flexibly. 

The global nature of capital markets seriously limits the extent to which one 

country acting alone can organize information on financial markets. Many large institutions have foreign subsidiaries that take financial positions in coordination with 

the parent. Accordingly, strong cooperative arrangements among domestic and foreign authorities, supported by an appropriate statutory framework, are needed to 

enable appropriate sharing of information among relevant authorities. Strong cooperation will not be a panacea, however, as legal and other restrictions on data 

sharing differ from one jurisdiction to the next, and it is unlikely that all such restrictions can be overcome. But cooperation and legislation to facilitate sharing with 

foreign authorities appears to be the best available strategy. 

Significant practical barriers also exist that can, at times, limit the quality of data 

collection and analysis available to support effective supervision and regulation, 

which include barriers to sharing data that arise from policies designed to protect 

privacy. For example, some private-sector databases and bank’s loan books include 

firms’ tax identification (ID) numbers as identifiers. Mapping those ID numbers into 

various characteristics, such as broad geographic location or taxable income measures, can be important for effective analysis and can be done in a way that does 

not threaten privacy. However, as a practical matter, a firm may have multiple ID 

numbers or they may have changed, but the Internal Revenue Service usually cannot share the information needed to validate a match between the firm and the ID 

number, even under arrangements designed to protect the confidentiality of the taxpayer information obtained. 

In addition, a significant amount of financial information is collected by privatesector vendors seeking to profit from the sale of data. These vendors have invested 

in expertise and in the quality of data in order to meet the needs of their customers, 

and the Federal Reserve is a purchaser of some of these data. However, vendors 

often place strong limitations on the sharing of such data with anyone, including 

among Federal agencies, and on the manner in which such data may be used. They 

also create systems with private identifiers for securities and firms or proprietary 

formats that do not make it easy to link with other systems. Surely it is important 

that voluntary contributors of data be able to protect their interests, and that the 

investments and intellectual property of firms be protected. But the net effect has 

been a noncompatible web of data that is much less useful, and much more expensive, to both the private and the public sector, than it might otherwise be. 

Protecting privacy and private-sector property rights clearly are important policy 

objectives; they are important considerations in the Federal Reserve’s current data 

collection and safeguarding. Protecting the economy from systemic risk and promoting the safety and soundness of financial institutions also are important public 

objectives. The key issue is whether the current set of rules appropriately balances 

these interests. In light of the importance of the various interests involved, the Congress should consider initiating a process through which the parties of interest may 

exchange views and develop potential policy options for the Congress’s consideration. 

Organization Structure for Data Collection and Developing Analytical 

Tools 

In addition to balancing the costs and benefits of enhanced data and analytical 

tools, the Congress must determine the appropriate organizational form for data collection and development of analytical tools. Budget costs, production efficiencies, 

and the costs of separating data collection and analysis from decisionmaking are im-
42 

portant considerations. Any proposed form of organization should facilitate effective 

data sharing. It also should increase the availability of data, including aggregated 

supervisory data as appropriate, to market participants and experts so that they can 

serve the useful role of providing independent perspectives on risks in the financial 

system. 

The current arrangement, in which different agencies collect and analyze data, cooperating in cases where a consensus exists among them, can certainly be improved. 

The most desirable feature of collection and analysis under the existing setup is that 

it satisfies the principle that data collection and analysis should serve the end users, 

the regulatory agencies. Each of the existing agencies collects some data from entities it regulates or supervises, using its expertise to decide what to collect under 

its existing authorities and how to analyze it. Moreover, the agencies seek to achieve 

cost efficiencies and to reduce burdens on the private sector by cooperating in some 

data collection. An example is the Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income, 

or Call Reports, collected by the bank regulatory agencies from both national and 

state-chartered commercial banks. The content of the reporting forms is coordinated 

by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, which includes representatives of both state and Federal bank regulatory agencies. 

A standalone independent data collection and analysis agency might be more nimble than the current setup because it would not have to reach consensus with other 

agencies. It might also have the advantage of fostering an overall assessment of financial data needs for all governmental purposes. 

However, there would also be some substantial disadvantages to running comprehensive financial data collection through a separate independent agency established for this purpose. A new agency would entail additional budget costs because 

the agency would likely need to replicate many of the activities of the regulatory 

agencies in order to determine what data are needed. More importantly, because it 

would not be involved directly in supervision or market monitoring, such an agency 

would be hampered in its ability to understand the types of information needed to 

effectively monitor systemic risks and conduct macroprudential supervision. Data 

collection and analysis are not done in a vacuum; an agency’s duties will inevitably 

reflect the priorities, experience, and interests of the collecting entity. Even regular 

arms-length consultations among agencies might not be effective, because detailed 

appreciation of the regulatory context within which financial activities that generate 

data and risks is needed. The separation of data collection and regulation could also 

dilute accountability if supervisors did not have authority to shape the form and 

scope of reporting requirements by regulated entities in accordance with supervisory 

needs. 

An alternative organizational approach would be available if the Congress creates 

a council of financial regulators to monitor systemic risks and help coordinate responses to emerging threats, such as that contemplated in a number of legislative 

proposals. Under this approach, the supervisory and regulatory agencies would 

maintain most data collection and analysis, with some enhanced authority along the 

lines I have suggested. Coordination would be committed to the council, which could 

also have authority to establish information collection requirements beyond those 

conducted by its member agencies when necessary to monitor systemic risk. 

This approach might achieve the benefits of the current arrangement and the proposed independent agency, while avoiding their drawbacks. The council would be directed to seek to resolve conflicts among the agencies in a way that would preserve 

nimbleness, and it could recommend that an agency develop new types of data, but 

it would leave the details of data collection and analysis to the agencies that are 

closest to the relevant firms and markets. And while this council of financial supervisors could act independently if needed to collect information necessary to monitor 

the potential buildup of systemic risk, it would benefit directly from the knowledge 

and experience of the financial supervisors and regulators represented on the council. The council could also have access to the data collected by all its agencies and, 

depending on the staffing decisions, could either coordinate or conduct systemic risk 

analyses. 

Conclusion 

Let me close by thanking you once again for your attention to the important topic 

of ensuring the availability of the information necessary to monitor emergent systemic risks and establish effective macroprudential supervisory oversight. As you 

know, these tasks will not be easy. However, without a well-designed infrastructure 

of useful and timely data and improved analytical tools—which would be expected 

to continue to evolve over time—these tasks will only be more difficult. We look forward to continued discussion of these issues and to a development of a shared agen-
43 

da for improving our information sources. I would be happy to answer any questions 

you might have. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ALLAN I. MENDELOWITZ, PH.D 

FOUNDING MEMBER, THE COMMITTEE TO ESTABLISH

THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FINANCE

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN C. LIECHTY 

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MARKETING AND STATISTICS, 

SMEAL COLLEGE OF BUSINESS, PENN STATE

UNIVERSITY, AND FOUNDING MEMBER, THE COMMITTEE TO ESTABLISH

THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FINANCE

FEBRUARY 12, 2010 

Providing Financial Regulators with the Data and Tools Needed to 

Safeguard Our Financial System 

Mr. Chairman and Member of the Subcommittee: 

We thank you for the opportunity to appear before you on behalf of the Committee 

to Establish the National Institute of Finance (CE–NIF). The primary objective of 

the CE–NIF is to seek the passage of legislation to create a National Institute of 

Finance (NIF). In our testimony today we would like to provide the reasons why 

we see this as an urgent national need and the role we see for the proposed National Institute of Finance in strengthening the government’s ability to effectively 

regulate financial institutions and markets and to respond to the challenges of systemic risk. 

The CE–NIF is unique. We are a volunteer group of concerned citizens brought 

together by a common view that the Federal Government and its financial regulators lack the necessary data and analytical capability to effectively monitor and 

respond to systemic risk and to effectively regulate financial firms and markets. The 

members of the CE–NIF consist of individuals from academia, the regulatory agencies, and the financial community. We have raised no money to support our effort, 

we represent no vested interests, and we have paid what few expenses we have incurred out of our own pockets. We share what we believe to be a legislative objective 

that is critical to the long-term well-being and prosperity of our nation. 

Lessons of the Credit Crisis: Critical Weaknesses in Financial Regulation 

Were Revealed 

Government Officials Lacked the Data To Understand 

The Consequences of Alternative Options 

The events of the most recent financial crisis have laid bare the dire consequences 

that can flow form poorly understood and ineffectively regulated financial institutions and markets. In response to the crisis, a lot of attention has been paid to how 

to strengthen the legal authorities and organizational structure of the financial regulatory community. Unfortunately, far less attention has been paid to what data 

and analytical capability is needed to enable regulators to use those new powers effectively. Data and analytics are not the stuff of headlines and stump speeches; 

however, when they are deficient, they are the Achilles’ heel of financial regulation. 

Unfortunately, we have ample evidence that the recent crisis was due in part to a 

lack of appropriate data and analytic tools. A review of key events from the recent 

crisis makes this point very clear. 

When Lehman Brothers tottered on the brink of bankruptcy in September, 2008 

government officials were faced with a choice between two stark alternatives: save 

Lehman Brothers and signal to the markets and other large and highly inter-connected financial institutions that they could count on an implicit government safety 

net, irrespective of how risky their financial excesses might be; or let this large and 

important investment bank go under—reaffirming to the market that there are consequences to risky business practices—but run the risk of setting off a cascade of 

bankruptcies and market disruptions. 

Forced to make a quick decision, officials let Lehman go under, a decision that 

sparked a horrifying downward spiral of the financial markets and the economy. 

That decision was based, in part, on the belief at Treasury that participants in the 

financial markets had been aware of the problems at Lehman for a number of 
44 

1 ‘‘The view at Treasury . . . was that Lehman’s management had been given abundant time 

to resolve their situation by raising additional capital or selling off the firm, and market participants were aware of this and had time to prepare.’’ Phillip L. Swagel—Assistant Secretary for 

Economic Policy at the U.S. Treasury during crisis—Brookings Papers March, 2009. 

months and had ample time to prepare by limiting their exposure.1 Officials did not 

have access to the types of information that would have given them a better picture 

of how interconnected firms and the broader markets were to Lehman’s fate. The 

day after the failure, the Reserve Fund—a $64.8 billion money market fund—‘broke 

the buck’ because of its exposure to Lehman. That is, its assets were no longer sufficient to support a $1.00 value for the price of its shares. This sparked a massive 

run on the $3.5 trillion money market industry and, because of the important role 

that the money market funds play in providing liquidity in the commercial paper 

market (a market for providing short-term corporate loans) the $2.2 trillion commercial paper market froze. When the broader economy was no longer able to access 

funding and credit, the crisis had become systemic. 

Whether the government could have done a better job of responding to that challenge or foreseen the catastrophic fallout of the Lehman decision is an open question. The point that is clear, however, is that at this critical moment in time they 

did not have the data needed to fully understand the counterparty relationships 

linking Lehman to the system, nor did they have in place the capacity to analyze 

such data to form a clear picture of the consequences of the alternatives they faced. 

Simply put, at this critical juncture, government officials were flying blind. 

Unfortunately, this lack of data was representative of the problems the government faced in understanding what was going on across the breadth of the market. 

At the very same time that Secretary of the Treasury was grappling with the problems at Lehman, he learned for the first time the extent of the problems at AIG 

caused by the excessively large concentration of Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) on the 

books of AIG’s Financial Products unit. AIG had written $441 billion in CDSs— 

linked to Private Label Mortgage Backed Securities (PLMBSs). Those PLMBSs were 

rapidly becoming the ‘Toxic Assets’ of this crisis and falling in value, sharply increasing the value of AGI’s obligation to make good on those CDSs. Officials were 

apprised of the scale of the problem, but they faced two key problems that were 

evaporating trust in the market: the growing uncertainty over how to value these 

CDS and the fact that they had no way of understanding the Domino risks, i.e. the 

risk that the failure of one firm (AIG) would cause a cascade of failures throughout 

the system. Facing these uncertainties, government officials felt they had no choice 

but to provide massive government assistance to prevent AIG from failing. 

In addition to being an essential component of measuring and monitoring systemic risk, having or not having comprehensive counterparty data has important forensic consequences, as well. Bernie Madoff ran the largest and most damaging 

Ponzi scheme in history. He reported consistently high earnings based on a purported complex trading strategy that made ample use of derivative transactions. He 

was able to perpetrate this very long running fraud, in part, because officials did 

not have good data on the network of counterparties to derivative transactions. 

Madoff’s consistently high reported earnings raised questions among a few in the 

financial community, and although the SEC investigated several times they found 

nothing amiss. If they would have had access to data on the counterparty network 

for derivative transactions the outcome of those investigations could have been very 

different because Madoff’s reported derivatives trades were, of course, fictitious. A 

simple check of the counterparty data would have revealed that no one reported 

being on the other side of Madoff’s trades, and that they had to be fictitious. That 

evidence would have confirmed the fraud. 

Critical Components of Effective Regulation Were ‘‘Outsourced’’ 

The extent to which the government lacked the necessary data and analytical capability to effectively regulate financial institutions and markets was hidden from 

view in some cases because of the extent to which the government has in effect 

outsourced critical regulatory capabilities. 

Some of that outsourcing enabled the creation of the toxic assets that became a 

central part of the crisis. When these private label subprime mortgage backed securities were initially issued, large tranches were rated triple-A or double-A by private 

rating agencies. Rating these securities and advising issuers on how to qualify for 

the desired rates was a large and profitable business for the rating agencies. These 

rating received the blessing of the financial regulators and that made it easy for investment and commercial banks to sell many ultimately troubled asses to highly 

regulated financial firms (such as insured depositories, insurance companies, pension funds, Federal Home Loan Banks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). 
45 

Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan in a speech in 2008 alluded to this outsourcing of responsibilities to the rating agencies. ‘‘In a world of risk-based supervision,’’ he said, ‘‘supervisors pay proportionally more attention to the instruments 

that appear to present the greatest risk, which typically does not include triple-Arated securities.’’ In other words, the regulators were relying on the rating agencies 

to determine what ‘‘appear(s) to present the greatest risk.’’ 

The transformation of these assets from triple-A rated to Toxic Assets started 

when rising delinquencies and defaults in the underlying subprime mortgages forced 

the rating agencies to downgrade many of those securities. Those downgrades raised 

questions in the market about the credit quality of a whole range of structured investment products. However, in many, if not most, cases market participants lacked 

the ability to see through these complicated structured financial products to the underlying collateral and only a handful of market participants had the sophistication 

to allow them to independently assess their value and inherent riskiness. 

When the financial markets crashed and the major surviving financial firms teetered on the brink the Federal Government had to determine whether these firms 

were adequately capitalized. However, neither the Treasury nor the regulatory 

agencies were able to make such determinations completely on their own because 

they lacked the necessary data and analytical capacity to do so. The government 

turned to the banks themselves to do the assessments. Although the bank’s systems 

were not designed to anticipate domino risks and deal with the lack of market liquidity, they were the best that was available. The Treasury posited a few economic 

stress scenarios and instructed the regulated banks to assess how they would fare 

under those scenarios. The banks were then to report the results of their analyses 

back to the Treasury and their regulators. 

It is an ironic twist that the regulators had to rely on the same models that were 

employed to manage banks’ exposure to risk during the run-up to the crisis in order 

to perform this analysis. Of course, banks should have the capability to perform 

such analysis; it is part and parcel of competent corporate management and governance. However, this crisis demonstrates the importance of having a regulatory community that is capable of generating independent assessments of the credit quality 

of a security or the safety and soundness of a bank, market or the financial system 

that they regulate. 

Systemic Risk: the Whole is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts 

The capital markets exist to move capital from less efficient uses to more efficient 

uses. The capacity of the markets to intermediate risk and provide for these flows 

of capital was seriously threatened in the recent crisis, and there are several alternative ways of trying to prevent another crisis that are being looked at. One prevailing line of thinking is that systemic risk can be managed by identifying a relatively small number of systemically important institutions and regulating them especially well. There are critical conceptual errors in this thinking. When it comes 

to systemic risk, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Even if there were 

no large, systemically important institutions, there would still be the risk of systemic failure. A couple of representative examples follow, along with the identification of the type of data needed to monitor and respond to systemic risk related to 

these examples. 

Systemic risk may arise as a consequence of the way financial firms are tightly 

linked to one another by multiple complex contractual relationships. For example, 

when LTCM teetered on the brink of failure in 1998 the government organized a 

group of large financial institutions to step in and provide sufficient capital to prevent that failure. One investment bank, whose exposure to LTCM was about $100 

million, was asked to contribute more than $150 million to support LTCM. As a narrowly defined business proposition it does not make much sense to put $150 million 

at risk to try to protect an exposure of $100 million. This was especially true when 

that institution could have withstood the loss of the $100 million without impacting 

its ability to continue operating. Why did they do it? Although a $100 million loss 

would not have caused that firm’s failure, they did not know how exposed their 

other major trading partners were to LCTM. If one or more of their major counterparties failed as a result of their exposure to LTCM, they could have been dragged 

down as well. Financial regulators need detailed counterparty data to monitor the 

domino risks that comes from connectedness. 

Systemic risk may arise from excessively large concentrations of risk on the books 

of a financial institution or a group of firms. Concentrations in and of themselves 

are not necessarily a systemic risk. However, the interplay between concentrations 

and connectedness can create systemic risk. In this crisis the best example was the 

dangerously large concentration of CDSs on the books of AIG’s Financial Products 

unit. Investors in Private Label Mortgage Backed Securities (PLMBS) turned to the 
46 

CDS market to lower the credit risk of their investments. Issuers of PLMBS entered 

into CDS transactions to raise the credit ratings of the securities they were issuing. 

AIG aggregated that market-wide risk on their balance sheet by writing $441 billion 

of CDS contracts against the risk of loss associated in those PLMBS, without hedging that risk or having sufficient assets in reserve to cover the losses that developed. 

To stave off the consequences of a failure to those already fragile firms doing business with AIG, the Federal Government committed to put almost $200 billion in 

capital into AIG. Financial regulators need market-wide position data to monitor 

the buildup of systemic risk that may flow from such concentrations. 

What We Do Know About the Next Systemic Financial Crises 

No matter how much we improve the government’s ability to understand and remediate systemic risk, that risk cannot be reduced to zero. Therefore, we must prepare for the next financial crises. And, in that regard, there are several things that 

we do know: 

• The first is that while there may be some similarities with previous crises and 

lessons to be learned from them, the cause of tomorrow’s crisis will likely be 

different than yesterday’s crisis. 

• The second is that you cannot prepare for tomorrow’s crisis by simply collecting 

the data and building the models you needed to understand yesterday’s crisis. 

You must cast a broader net. 

• The third is that when a new crisis begins to unfold it will be too late to try 

to collect the additional data, build the analytics, and undertake the research 

needed to make better regulatory and policy decisions. Policy makers and regulators will be stuck using the data and the analytics that they have at hand 

to try to develop the best policy response. 

The National Institute of Finance: An Essential Response 

Most of the debate related to regulatory reform has focused on altering the regulatory organizational structure and providing regulators with new legal authorities. 

Very little attention has focused on providing the capacities (data, analytic tools and 

sustained research) needed to be able to measure and monitor systemic risk and correct the current deficiencies in regulatory capabilities. In order to address these 

weaknesses we propose the creation of a National Institute of Finance (NIF). The 

NIF would have the mandate to collect the data and develop the analytic tools needed to measure and understand systemic risk, and to strengthen the government’s 

ability to effectively regulate financial institutions and markets. In addition, the 

NIF would provide a common resource for the entire regulatory community and the 

Congress. 

Key Components and Authorities 

The NIF would be an independent resource supporting the financial regulatory 

agencies. It would not be a regulatory agency itself. The only regulatory authority 

it would have would be to provide reference data, set data reporting standards, and 

compel the provision of data. The NIF would have two key organizational components: the Federal Financial Data Center (Data Center) and the Federal Financial 

Research and Analysis Center (Research Center). The Research Center would have 

the responsibility to build analytics, and sponsor and perform research. Last, the 

NIF would be funded by a direct assessment on the firms required to report to it. 

The Data Center will collect and mange transaction and position data for (1) 

U.S. based entities (including for example, banks, broker-dealers, hedge funds, insurance companies, investment advisors, private equity funds and other highly leveraged financial entities) and their affiliates; and (2) U.S.-based financial transactions conducted by non-U.S. based entities. In order to carry out this responsibility, the Data Center will develop and maintain standards for reporting transaction and position data, including the development and maintenance of reference 

databases of legal entity identifiers and financial products. It will also establish the 

format and structure for reporting individual transactions and positions. It will collect, clean, and maintain transaction and position data in secure databases. It will 

provide regulators access to the data, and it will provide public access to aggregated 

and/or delayed data to improve market transparency—providing no business confidential information is compromised. Keeping this data secure will be an important 

responsibility of the Data Center. In this regard, the Federal Government has a 

long-standing and excellent track record in maintaining the security of all kinds of 

very sensitive data, including financial, military, intelligence, tax and census data 

and the NIF would adhere to the same data security standards used for existing 

secure data centers. 
47 

The Research Center will develop metrics to measure and monitor systemic risk 

and continually monitor, investigate and report on changes in system-wide risk levels. In addition, the Research Center will develop the capacity to assess the financial condition of large financial institutions and assess their capital adequacy in 

stress scenarios. The Research Center will be responsible for conducting, coordinating and sponsoring the long-term research needed to support systemic risk regulation. The Research Center will provide advice on the financial system and policies 

related to systemic risk. In addition, it will undertake assessments of financial disruptions in order to determine their causes, and make recommendations for appropriate regulatory and legislative action in response to those findings. 

An Independent Voice: It is critical that the NIF have the ability and responsibility to report its findings in a fully independent manner. Because the NIF does 

not have any financial regulatory authority, per se, its objectivity will not be diminished by a conflict of interest that could arise if it had to report on its own regulatory actions. In addition, it is structured in a way that helps insulate it from political pressures. This structure plays a key role in assuring that the NIF will offer 

its very best unbiased assessments of the risks facing the financial system and the 

broader economy, as well as its best unbiased recommendations for responding to 

those risks. 

Funding from Assessments: The NIF will be funded by assessments on reporting institutions. This method of funding is used by financial regulatory agencies and 

is appropriate for several reasons. First, the financial sector will benefit from an annual reduction in operating cost of tens of billions of dollars as a result of the standardization of data and reporting. Having the beneficiaries of these cost savings use 

some of those savings to fund the NIF is the fair thing to do. In addition, like the 

financial regulatory agencies, the use of industry assessments will make it possible 

for the NIF to pay salaries that are above the standard civil service pay scale and 

better enable the NIF to attract the highly skilled staff it will need to fulfill its responsibilities. 

Benefits of Establishing a National Institute of Finance 

Establishing a National Institute of Finance will bring substantial benefits to our 

financial system and the broader economy. The fundamental benefits of the NIF are 

many. 

It will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of financial regulation. 

The Institute will provide regulators with the ability to independently assess the 

safety and soundness of a bank, market or the financial system, stopping the outsourcing of critical capacity to banks and rating agencies. It will investigate market 

disruptions and conduct the fundamental research needed to improve regulation of 

financial institutions and markets. It will also ensure that these findings and advances are integrated into the systemic risk monitoring systems. In addition it will 

provide an invaluable resource for the analysis of proposed regulatory policy and 

monitoring of existing policy to help refine and strengthen the overall approach to 

regulation. 

It will reduce the likelihood of systemic crises and costly institutional 

failures. As the NIF develops models and metrics for systemic risk and collects the 

appropriate data, it will be able to provide a better understanding of system-wide 

aggregation, of the level of liquidity in the system, and gain a better understanding 

of potential for liquidity failures and fire sales, which are part of the early warning 

stages of a systemic failure. When it is fully mature, the NIF will have the ability 

to see through the entire counterparty network, allowing it to quantify Domino 

risks—the risk of a cascading failure that might result from the failure of other financial entities—and identify critical nodes in the counterparty network. Along with 

market participants, it will also have the ability to see through complex structured 

products down to the underlying collateral (e.g. loans or mortgages providing the 

cash-flows)—helping improve transparency and avoiding the rise of new types of 

toxic assets that could trigger a future crisis. 

It would create a safer and more competitive market. By helping improve 

individual firm risk management and providing better tools to the regulators to 

monitor and oversee systemic risk, the U.S. financial markets will be made safer, 

and will attract more business than competitors that are more prone to major 

shocks or collapses during times of economic stress. 

In addition, the NIF would actually benefit the U.S. financial services industry, 

as well. 

It would reduce operating costs. Standardizing data reporting will dramatically reduce back office costs (costs associated with verifying details of trades with 

counter parties) and costs associated with maintaining reference databases (legal 

entity and financial instrument databases). Morgan Stanley estimates that imple-
48 

mentation of the NIF will result in 20 percent to 30 percent savings in operational 

costs. 

It would facilitate risk management. By requiring daily reporting of all positions to the NIF, firms will be able to present a complete picture of their positions 

to their own internal risk management groups. This will in turn ensure that senior 

management has a consistent and clear understanding of the firm’s exposures—particularly their exposure to different counterparties during times of economic stress. 

Conclusion 

The Federal Government has responded to a number of threats to our national 

well-being by organizing major research and monitoring efforts. The threat of natural disasters led to the creation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, containing the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center, 

whose skill in forecasting the weather and warning of impending natural disasters 

has saved many lives. The Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes 

of Health have advanced the state of medical research, developed new treatments 

for deadly diseases, and mobilized to protect the population from the threats of 

pandemics. The nation’s national security has been greatly advanced by the outgrowth of the sustained research programs supported by DARPA. 

When we look at the financial losses suffered by the American public and the burden placed on U.S. taxpayers by the government’s response to this most recent financial crisis, it is fair to ask why we have not created a similar sustained research 

and monitoring effort to protect the American people from the high costs of systemic 

risk and financial implosions. The regulatory reform legislation that recently passed 

in the House charges a new Financial Services Oversight Council (FSOC) with the 

task of monitoring systemic risk and provides some new legal authorities to intervene in a time of crisis. However, it fails to provide the tools necessary to carry out 

the systemic risk monitoring responsibility. That responsibility can only be carried 

out well if the proposed FSOC has a deep understanding of how our financial system works. Such an understanding can only be based on access to much better system-wide data and the analytic tools needed to turn that data into relevant information on systemic risk. This is something that is currently beyond the government’s 

capability. Unfortunately, as set forth in the House bill, the FSOC would have no 

permanent staff and no specific authority to collect the many kinds of system-wide 

data needed. As it stands the FSOC represents little more than a hollow promise 

when it comes to its ability to monitor systemic risk and warm of future crises. 

Our nation’s financial markets are a public good. The safety of our country and 

the well being of our population depend on well functioning financial markets. We 

have incurred very high costs in this recent crisis as a result of the failings of our 

current approach to regulating financial markets and institutions. This approach 

has relied on a fragmented, data poor, regulatory structure that despite its best efforts did not have the tools with which to understand and respond to the threat presented by systemic risk. 

The Senate has an opportunity to materially strengthen any proposed financial 

regulatory reform legislation by creating a National Institute of Finance that will 

equip regulators and a systemic risk regulator with the data and analytical tools 

needed to correct the deficiencies that were made so apparent in this recent crisis. 

The full capabilities of the NIF will take several years to realize, however, benefits 

will ensue from each stage of its development. Although it will take time and substantial effort to stand up the National Institute of Finance, the benefits should far 

outweigh the cost. 

Lastly, we were pleased to learn that on February 4, 2010 Sen. Jack Reed introduced S. 3005, ‘‘The National Institute of Finance Act of 2010.’’ This act lays out 

a strong case for the creation of the National Institute of Finance. Furthermore, it 

proposes the creation of the NIF in a way that insures its ability to fulfill the role 

envisioned by the CE–NIF. It would have the authority to collect the data necessary 

to monitor systemic risk. It would have the responsibility to establish a Research 

Center that will develop the metrics for monitoring systemic risk and to report on 

its monitoring of that risk. It would have the capacity to be a significant resource 

for the regulatory community. It would have the ability to fund itself in a way that 

insures that it will have adequate resources for its important mission, and it is 

structured so that it will be a truly independent and technically expert voice on 

matters relating to the regulation of financial institutions and markets and the 

threats of systemic risk. 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, this concludes our prepared 

statement. Thank you for the opportunity to present the recommendations of the 

Committee to Establish the National Institute of Finance. We will be happy to answer any questions the committee may have. 
49 

FINANCIAL HURRICANES WILL COME AGAIN

When the financial hurricane of 2008 made landfall, the regulators and policymakers charged with keeping our financial system safe were taken by surprise. Although there were some indications of financial uncertainty, this financial storm hit 

with the same unexpected suddenness as the New England Hurricane of 1938— 

which slammed into Suffolk County, Long Island, and then continued into Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and finally Canada. The Martha’s Vineyard Gazette noted at the time, ‘‘This tragedy was not the 

loss of nearly 10,000 homes and business along the shore. It was the psychic destruction of summer for an entire generation.’’ 

Earlier hurricanes had brought structural responses from the U.S. Government. 

In 1807 the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey was established by Thomas 

Jefferson, a quarter century after the Great Hurricane of 1780—the deadliest on 

record, killing over 27,500 people. The Weather Bureau was formed in 1870 under 

President Ulysses S. Grant to gather data on the weather and provide warnings of 

approaching storms. Even though the Weather Bureau was in place, it was not able 

to offer any warning for the Category 4 Hurricane that devastated Galveston, Texas 

on September 8th, 1900. By 1926 reports from sea could be delivered with a varying 

level of reliability, which was part of the reason that there were a few hours warning for the Miami Hurricane of September 18th, 1929. By the time the New England 

Hurricane of 1938 hit, the Weather Bureau had better data and better models. Still, 

as the New York Times observed, ‘‘Except for Charlie Pierce, a junior forecaster in 

the U.S. Weather Bureau who predicted the storm but was overruled by the chief 

forecaster, the Weather Bureau experts and the general public never saw it coming’’. 

Are our regulators and policymakers any better equipped today than the Weather 

Bureau of 1938? In his opening remarks to the Senate Banking Committee on June 

18, 2009, Secretary Geithner observed, ‘‘If this crisis has taught us anything, it has 

taught us that risk to our system can come from almost any quarter. We must be 

able to look in every corner and across the horizon for dangers, and our system was 

not able to do that.’’ 

In 1970, President Richard Nixon created the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration (NOAA), with the mandate to: i) develop data collection networks to 

document natural variability and support predictive models, ii) develop new analytical and forecasting tools to improve weather services and earlier warnings of natural disasters and iii) conduct experiments to understand natural processes. While 

NOAA’s real-time data collection and analysis infrastructure are significant and 

continue to bring a range of substantial benefits to society, they were made possible 

largely through the research arm of NOAA—the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Research (OAR)—with its seven research laboratories, six undersea laboratories and 

a range of research partners. Clearly our financial markets are at least as important 

and as complicated as the weather. Why don’t we have the equivalent of NOAA or 

OAR for the financial markets? 

The current regulatory reform legislation that was passed in the House charges 

a new Financial Services Oversight Council (FSOC) with the task of monitoring systemic risk—watching for future financial hurricanes—and provides some new legal 

authorities to intervene in the time of crisis. However, it fails to provide a NOAA 

type mandate to collect system-wide data and build realistic system-wide models, 

which can only be built upon a deep understanding of how our financial system 

works. The FSOC will have no permanent staff and no specific authority to collect 

the many kinds of system-wide data needed. As it stands the FSOC represents a 

hollow promise that will leave us unprepared for the financial hurricanes that will 

surely come. 

The Senate has an opportunity to strengthen the FSOC in their version of the 

legislation by creating a National Institute of Finance along the lines of NOAA’s key 

components: providing regulators with better data and better models—built on a 

sustained research effort. When it comes to safeguarding our financial system our 

goals should be bold, our expectations realistic and our dedication to the task substantial. Although it will take time, the benefits will far outweigh the cost, just as 

they have done with hurricanes. 

Richard Foster, Senior Faculty Fellow, Yale School of Management; Emeritus Director, McKinsey & Company 

John Liechty, Associate Professor, Penn State University; Co-Founder, Committee 

to Establish the National Institute of Finance 
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PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROBERT ENGLE 

PROFESSOR OF FINANCE, STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

FEBRUARY 12, 2010 

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee. My name is 

Robert Engle. I am a Professor at the Leonard Stern School of Business at New 

York University. I recently co-authored a report of the National Research Council 

that summarized a workshop on Technical Capabilities Needed for the Regulation 

of Systemic Risk. The Research Council is the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine, 

chartered by Congress in 1863 to advise the government on matters of science and 

technology. This workshop and its report were sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan 

Foundation. After I summarize our report, I would like to give you my personal response to the questions posed in your letter as well as the pending legislation on 

the National Institute of Finance. 

Key findings of the National Research Council’s report are as follows: 

1. With better data and better analytical tools, the participants were confident 

that we could measure, monitor and ultimately lessen systemic risk. 

2. Research to accomplish this goal is already underway in academic and regulatory institutions and is being presented in scholarly and practitioner meetings. This research is now primarily based on publicly available market, size 

and leverage data. The research however has far to go. 

3. Additional data across asset classes and with counterparty, position, collateral 

and valuation information would be very helpful. But many participants at our 

meeting said it was not yet possible to determine which specific data would be 

needed. 

4. Compilation and analysis of such data would require standardization and classification that does not yet exist and which would be valuable for the industry 

as well as for the regulators. 

5. Data alone will not be sufficient to understand risk, illiquidity, bank runs, bubbles and other features central to assessing systemic risk. These can only be 

examined within models, and research is needed to develop some of those models and improve others. As Andrew Lo of MIT summarized, systemic regulators 

need to know the four Ls: leverage, linkages, liquidity and losses. 

I request that the full report be attached to my testimony. 

In response to the specific questions and the pending legislation on the National 

Institute of Finance, I would like to make several points. These comments are my 

own, not the National Research Council’s. I have endorsed the concept of the National Institute of Finance in a letter from Harry Markowitz which is also signed 

by William Sharpe, Robert Merton, Myron Scholes, and Vernon Smith, all Nobel 

Laureates. These comments suggest the aspects I find particularly strong or weak 

about the proposal. 

First, let me address the status of data available to regulators. 

6. Data collection by supervisory agencies takes various forms. Some obtain detailed information in response to specific requests of entities that they supervise, but it is not automatically generated and reported. Because of privacy 

issues, these data cannot be shared even within a regulatory body or with 

other regulatory entities. Thus only partial views of all information are available. 

7. Useful data sets exist within clearing houses, self-regulatory organizations 

such as DTCC or FINRA and surveillance operations in exchanges or regulators. These data will have positions, and counterparties at a fine level of 

disaggregation. Upon specific request, regulators have been able to access these 

data but generally cannot share them. 

8. Risk reports that summarize major firm risks at a point in time are automatically submitted to supervisory agencies. However, these generally do not have 

counterparty information, and their information might not be freely available 

throughout the agency. 

9. In summary, regulators have access to more data than the public, but the collection is fragmented, discontinuous and possibly quite delayed in time. Improved data availability would enhance all regulatory processes. 

Further comments on the NIF. 
51 

10. The data collection and aggregation functions of the NIF proposal are staggering. Some aspects are likely to be more important than others. In particular, the OTC contracts are the most complex and have the greatest chance 

of being systemic. Many of these have substantial counterparty exposure so 

they are inherently more systemically risky. Thus, collection of OTC position 

and transaction data could be the most important starting point. Establishment of some standardization and common identifiers for contracts, as noted 

above, would be an important step for making such data more useful. 

11. Systemic risk assessment requires selecting entities to monitor and then obtaining data to monitor them. Consequently, a great deal of data on entities 

that are not risky can be ignored, once the selection is accomplished. This selection process is not completely obvious, because small entities can sometimes pose systemic risks, so it needs to be done through careful analysis and 

revisited from time to time. 

12. The independence of the NIF is important in order to insulate it from corporate or government pressures. However, this could be satisfied by an NIF 

that was embedded within a regulatory agency that was itself independent 

and had systemic regulatory oversight responsibilities. There could be important cost savings from such embedding as well. 

13. International collaboration is of great importance. Systemic crises are global 

and the markets are global, hence regulators that only see domestic positions 

will miss important features. The NIF should immediately coordinate with 

relevant international agencies to collaborate on data acquisition and analysis. This coordination is important within the US and it is even more important for the smaller countries and regulators around the globe. Sovereign crises such as those experienced in the past in Ireland, Iceland, Latvia and Hungary and in Greece, Portugal and Spain today emphasize the interlinking of 

our financial system. 

14. The security of these data must be ensured. Otherwise, compliance may be 

difficult to achieve. 

15. Congress and the NIF should have as a goal making partially aggregated or 

delayed versions of the OTC data public so that counterparties can better 

price and manage the risks that they face. Better individual firm risk management contributes to better systemic risk management. Transparency in financial markets is a powerful supplement to regulation. 
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PREPARED STATEMENT OF STEPHEN C. HORNE 

VICE PRESIDENT, MASTER DATA MANAGEMENT AND

INTEGRATION SERVICES, DOW JONES & CO. 

FEBRUARY 12, 2010 

Good morning, Chairman Bayh, Ranking Member Corker and Members of the 

Subcommittee. 

My name is Steve Horne and I am the Vice President of Master Data Management for Dow Jones. I have spent over 30 years building complex databases, transforming highly complicated data into usable information. 

Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. 

I have testified many times over the past year on the impact of the financial meltdown and the need for a comprehensive analytic database that is designed to capture the appropriate real-time information necessary to prevent waste, fraud and 

abuse of the TARP program and to ensure that the American taxpayer’s money is 

being used as intended. 

Legislation that would create such a database has been introduced by Senator 

Warner, S. 910, with a companion bill that has already passed in the House, H.R. 

1242, by a vote of 421–0. Both these bills have been strongly endorsed by organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, OMB Watch, and the Center for Democracy in Technology. 

Using the same basic infrastructure of the database that would be created under 

the legislation described above, we at Dow Jones have identified over 400 leading 

indicators that when used together can identify potential systemic risk within the 

financial system and many other parts of the economy. The challenge is to combine 

this disparate data into a structured database to be able to make informed judgments about the risks. 

Systemic breakdowns that impact individual geographic markets in this country 

are caused by a combination of factors, including unemployment, bankruptcy, foreclosures and commercial real estate failure. 

For example, in Las Vegas, a huge influx of different socio-economic groups moved 

into this market over the past 10 years. One of these groups is retirees. When the 

financial meltdown occurred, these Americans were mostly living on fixed incomes: 

savings, retirement investments and their social security. They bought retirement 

homes either with cash or with mortgages that were smaller than many, but they 

still incurred new debt. Over the last 3 years, the income from their retirement investments went negative and they have had to dip into the principal as the only 

way for them to gain cash. 

As the foreclosures generally grew around them, retirees saw the value of their 

homes decrease in half as well. Those who had mortgages were now upside down, 

those who did not, saw the major investment they had spent a lifetime building 

dwindle in value. 

Now these senior citizens face a much more difficult situation. With a major portion of their principal gone, many cannot afford to live on their fixed income and 

have to go back to work. In Las Vegas, 16 percent unemployment does not bode well 

for anyone looking for work. If they own their home, new mortgages are very difficult to get. Reverse mortgages are not an option because of the reduced availability 

of these programs. The combination of these factors shows the market for retirees 

in Las Vegas is in systemic failure right now. 

This example is known in statistical terminology as the ‘‘Compounding Effects of 

Multiple Indices.’’ If we can integrate this data into an actionable database, regulators can quickly implement surgical solutions that will apply the appropriate programs/funds to the most serious problems. 

We are currently observing markets in North Carolina and Tennessee that are at 

risk of systemic failure. If the proposed data base were in place the government 

would be in a better position to confirm, quantify and tackle these problems 

proactively. 

Unfortunately, the data is in disparate systems that cannot talk to each other. 

The value of the data base that is proposed in S. 910 is in its ability to combine 

and analyze this data to predict and prevent systemic risk. The transformation of 

this data into actionable information is neither easy nor inexpensive. However, the 

implementation of the proposed data base will save significant taxpayer dollars in 

three ways: first, through more efficient targeting of resources and serving the areas 

of greatest need; second, by enabling the government to insure that the appropriate 

actions are taken before systemic failure occurs; and, third, by helping prevent 

waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer’s money. 
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The data base proposed should not create additional security concerns. The security methodologies under the IPSA Act (Information Protection and Security Act of 

2009) and the contractual controls for the use of commercial data are sufficient to 

protect this information. In addition, language included in H.R. 1242 that passed 

the House provides for even greater protections for non-public data. 

The system being proposed is designed to expand to cover global data. Although 

some of the data from overseas may not be accessible due to laws of specific countries, other international data is in better shape and can be built into accurate analytic systems because of the early adoption of XBRL technology by many countries. 

In summary, the data and technology exist today to equip financial regulators 

with the tools necessary to monitor systemic risk. The only thing lacking is government action to make it happen. 

Thank you again, Chairman Bayh, Ranking Member Corker and the Members of 

the Committee for your time and attention. I am happy to answer any questions 

you may have.