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Abstract The US is facing an acute housing supply shortage; the result of years of underconstruction. We argue that there are four major reasons for this: restrictive zoning, high regulatory [...]

Abstract Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been in conservatorship for over a decade. In September 2019, the U.S. Treasury proposed a plan to release the Government Sponsored Enterprises, Fannie [...]

Professor Aliber's survey is the first of this kind in the international banking literature. Although his summary and critical evalutaion of a large number of articles is very interesting, the paper lacks an overall conceptional framework. The development of such a framework was impeded by two factors. First, unlike the authors of the other two papers, he did not have the benefit of a prior survey to help map out the terrain to be discussed. Equally important is that a large proportion of the papers he is summarizing are nothing more than number-counting exercises--descriptions of how many U.S. banks went abroad and how many U.K., German, and Japanese banks came to the United States. In the long run, the major contribution of this survey may well be a valuable one. Many economists, encouraged by the low level of work in this area, may be tempted to begin research on these topics. Consequently, the purpose of my comments will be made with an eye toward guiding future research in this area. My task will be to try to sort out international financial intermediation questions from industrial organization questions. The first part of this discussion will be directed at developing a taxonomy of international financial intermediation. Interesting research questions and policy issues in the area of international financial intermediation will be explored. In the second part of my discussion, I would like to propose that the most fruitful area for further research is to try and isolate the cost advantages of particular locations and types of banks. This will enable researchers to develop feasible hypotheses in order to explain current patterns and future changes in the industrial organization of international banking. My comments will also be made with the intent of correcting what I view as the major weakness of Aliber's paper--its organization; he did not properly sort out international financial intermediation questions from industrial organization questions. While the... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]