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Issues In Focus
The latest in-depth FedFin analysis on breaking strategic challenges and critical policy question.
Financial Services Alert
This analytical service is a battery of alerts and analyses that keep senior management up to the minute on federal developments that affect strategy and the bottom line.
Financial Services Management
Financial Services Management is the analytical resource for senior management. Sharp and concise, it provides detailed discussions of the implications of a wide range of federal actions.
GSE Activity Report
GSE Activity Report is the only analytical service so objective that the GSEs and their harshest critics, as well as the government and investors, all rely on it.
Expert Analysis and Testimony
Federal Financial Analytics managing partner Karen Petrou has on a selective basis agreed to serve as an expert witness in litigation germane to matters such as director-and-officer liability related to regulatory requirements, the manner in which financial institutions are resolved, and the role forward-looking regulatory planning plays in M&A transactions, contractual matters, and related corporate actions.
Engine of Inequality, by Karen Petrou
The first book to reveal how the Federal Reserve holds the key to making us more economically equal, written by an author with unparalleled expertise in the real world of financial policy.
Following the 2008 financial crisis, the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy placed much greater focus on stabilizing the market than on helping struggling Americans. As a result, the richest Americans got a lot richer while the middle class shrank and economic and wealth inequality skyrocketed. In Engine of Inequality, Karen Petrou offers pragmatic solutions for creating more inclusive monetary policy and equality-enhancing financial regulation as quickly and painlessly as possible.
“Petrou’s book uncovers a hidden engine of our skyrocketing inequality: financial-policy. In an accessible and engaging prose, Petrou takes us through the inner workings of monetary policy at the Fed and financial regulations, how they’ve made inequality worse and how they could instead be retooled to take us to a more equitable future. A novel look at the problem of inequality and bold ideas to help resolve it. A must read.”—Emmanuel Saez, Professor of Economics at the University of California Berkeley and author of The Triumph of Injustice
Read full description and reviews.
Industry Expert
Federal Financial Analytics (FedFin) is a Washington-based financial services-consulting firm that has for decades attracted a high-powered clientele in Washington, on Wall Street, and among global central bankers. Since 1985 FedFin has provided a unique blend of analysis and strategic advice on public policy, regulatory, and legislative issues for industry and governmental clients doing business in the U.S. and abroad.
A proprietary think-tank for its clients, FedFin reviews critical federal and global policy developments in banking, insurance, asset management, and mortgage finance, analyzes them in great depth, and then advises clients on whether what they want can be made to work for them, within the policy environment and for the financial system. It is FedFin’s guiding principle to be an honest broker, and clients depend on the fact that the firm does not offer lobbying or any other services that could compromise its objectivity and independence.
As seen In:
In the News
Marketplace, Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Big banks are raking in cash By Caleigh Wells The end of 2024 was a great time for big banks. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, BlackRock — a bunch of financial institutions posted their calendar fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday. And a lot of them exceeded investors’ already rosy expectations. JPMorgan Chase and Wells [...]
American Banker, Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Barr's self-demotion changes little for regulatory outlook By Kyle Campbell Michael Barr has elected to end his term as Federal Reserve's top regulator a year and a half ahead of schedule, taking the threat of a costly and potentially damaging legal fight with the incoming Trump administration off the table [...]
American Banker, Monday, December 16, 2024
Where the Fed's Michael Barr goes from here By Kyle Campbell Michael Barr has a lot to do and little time to do it. His term as vice chair for supervision at the Federal Reserve ends in 19 months. Before then, he hopes to change liquidity standards, require more banks [...]
Issues in Focus
The Vault
Karen Petrou: Bowman’s Most Important Regulatory Recommendation
Although bankers have long paid keen attention to FRB. Gov. Bowman’s regulatory thinking, public attention was sparse until last week. In the wake of Michael Barr’s resignation and speculation that Ms. Bowman might take his place as supervisory vice chair, her regulatory thinking finally got the widespread attention her monetary-policy views have long enjoyed. And a good thing too. In a speech last week, she not only reiterated comments about [...]
Karen Petrou: Oval Office Bluster at a Time of Fed Confusion
There is no doubt after last year’s last-minute debacle that U.S. fiscal policy is in still tinier tatters. But, unnoticed so far is the still greater danger of confused fiscal policy combined as it now is with feckless monetary policy. An economy resting on fiscal- and monetary-policy disarray is an economy at grave risk that sure-and-certain volatility will break through fragile guardrails. Strained financial systems could then quickly compound the [...]
FedFin on: A Half-Empty Privatization Glass
Markets are getting very excited by ongoing Trump transition rhetoric about GSE privatization and a Friday CBO study refining its 2020 scenarios to conclude that release-and-recapitalization could proceed more quickly and prove less costly than four years ago suggested. That said, CBO remains cautious about what would happen if recap/release actually began, standing by its earlier, conservative view of budgetary implications and systemic impact. One little-noticed conclusion of note for those favoring privatization for free-market [...]