Break Up The Big Banks? Seven Reasons Why That's A Bad Idea
In recent months, many politicians and policymakers have grown more aggressively vocal in their call to break up large and systemically important U.S. banks as a further measure toward preventing another global financial crisis. We suggest they reconsider for several reasons.
- Regulations are already helping. Since the crisis in 2008–2009, we have seen a wave of improvements in bank regulation and supervision, from the application of Basel III enhanced capital and liquidity requirements to much of the Dodd-Frank Act, robust stress testing and the move to greater transparency in bank risk disclosures. Also, several large banks have shrunk their balance sheets and reduced their operational complexity in recent years in...

