Lawyers, Gender, and Money: Consensus, Closure, and Conflict in the Global Financial Crisis

Abstract

Whether cast as a “WashingtonConsensus” or a “GreatModeration,” a policy accord on deregulation and monetary fine-tuning limited economic debate from the 1990s through the global financial crisis. Over the bubbles of the 1990s, a widespread intellectual overconfidence inhibited efforts at regulatory restraint. For example, in the late 1990s, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers were lauded as a “Committee to Save the World” for their macroeconomic acumen. Even after the crash, policymakers resisted rethinking prior beliefs: in 2010, even while Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would concede that “economists have much to learn from this crisis,” he insisted that “calls for a radical reworking of the field go too far.”1 Similarly, those who had promoted deregulation refused to admit error. In preparing Timothy Geithner for confirmation hearings, Summersurged him to stonewall regarding 1990s deregulation, warning that he should not “admit we did anything wrong” (Suskind 2011, 163–64). Yet, even amidst this consensus, opposition persisted. In particular, three officials stand out: Brooksley Born, who ran the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) from 1996 to 1999; Sheila Bair, who chaired the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) from 2006 to 2011; and Elizabeth Warren, who presided over the Congressional Oversight Panel of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) from 2008 to 2010 and the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Each clashed with key colleagues as they favored increased regulation, taking professional and intellectual risks as they advanced arguments that conflicted with the prevailing conventional wisdom.