Equity For The Small Saver

Winner of the Harold Lasswell Award of the American Political Science Association The FSFIC failed spectacularly during the 1980s, costing taxpayers an estimated $200 billion. In this award-winning analysis, Rom examines the political causes of this “thrift tragedy.” He directly confronts-and rejects-the dominant scholarly “public choice” view that public officials were motivated mainly be self-interest. Instead, Rom argues that politicians and bureaucrats generally acted in the “public spirit” by attempting to obtain the common interest as they saw it. Using new evidence and innovative methods, Rom demonstrates that FSLIC's failure unfolded because of commitments that officials had made in the past and their uncertainties about how to fulfill these obligations in the future.

Mutual funds are a key resource for Americans saving for retirement, college, and other long-term goals. With hundreds of fund families and thousands of individual funds crowding the marketplace, competition would hardly seem an issue. Yet funds are failing to compete effectively on price. This is a serious problem for savers, because small price differences can deeply erode investment results over time. This book argues that the problem is not too little regulation, but too much and of the wrong kind. The authors show how current policy leads to de facto rate regulation and propose a new collective investment vehicle.