Did U.S. Housing Policy Cause the 2008 Financial Crisis?

Join the Center for Law, Economics & Finance for a panel discussion on the origin of the 2008 Financial Crisis.

Moderator:

• Arthur Wilmarth, Professor of Law, GW Law

Panelists:

• Peter J. Wallison, Senior Fellow and Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute
• Damon Silvers, Director of Policy and Special Counsel, AFL-CIO
• Kenneth Snowden, Professor of Economics, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Bryan School of Business and Economics

Panelist Bios

Peter J. Wallison
Peter J. Wallison, a codirector of American Enterprise Institute's program on financial policy studies, researches banking, insurance, and securities regulation. As general counsel of the U.S. Treasury Department, he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan administration’s proposals for the deregulation of the financial services industry. He also served as White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan.  This year, Wallison just published the book Hidden in Plain Sight: What Really Caused the World's Worst Financial Crisis—and Why It Could Happen Again.  He also authored the following books: Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency (Westview Press, 2002); Competitive Equity: A Better Way to Organize Mutual Funds (2007); Privatizing Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks (2004); The GAAP Gap: Corporate Disclosure in the Internet Age (2000); and Optional Federal Chartering and Regulation of Insurance Companies (2000). He also writes for AEI’s Financial Services Outlook series.

Damon Silvers
Damon A. Silvers is the Director of Policy and Special Counsel for the AFL-CIO.  He joined the AFL-CIO as Associate General Counsel in 1997.  Mr. Silvers serves on a pro bono basis as a Special Assistant Attorney General for the state of New York.  Mr. Silvers is also a member of the Investor Advisory Committee of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Treasury Department’s Financial Research Advisory Committee, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s Standing Advisory Group and its Investor Advisory Group.  Mr. Silvers served as the Deputy Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP from 2008 to 2011.  Between 2006 and 2008, Mr. Silvers served as the Chair of the Competition Subcommittee of the United States Treasury Department Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession and as a member of the United States Treasury Department Investor’s Practice Committee of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. Prior to working for the AFL-CIO, Mr. Silvers worked for the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers, and as a law clerk at the Delaware Court of Chancery for Chancellor William T. Allen and Vice-Chancellor Bernard Balick.

Arthur Wilmarth
Art Wilmarth joined the faculty in 1986, following 11 years in private law practice. Prior to joining the law school, he was a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Jones Day. Professor Wilmarth teaches courses in banking law, contracts, corporations, professional responsibility, and American constitutional history. He served as Executive Director of the Law School’s Center for Law, Economics and Finance (C-LEAF) from 2011 to 2014, and he has been a member of C-LEAF’s Executive Board since the center’s founding in 2009.  Professor Wilmarth is the author of more than forty law review articles and book chapters in the fields of banking law and American constitutional history, and he is the co-editor of a book on the financial crisis of 2008. In 2005, the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers awarded him its prize for the best law review article published in the field of consumer financial services law during the previous year.  Professor Wilmarth has testified before committees of the U.S. Congress, the California legislature, and the D.C. Council on bank regulatory issues. In 2010, he was a consultant to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, the body established by Congress to report on the causes of the financial crisis.