Economic Review

A SPECIAL FOCUS ON
Safe and Sound Banking: Past, Present, and Future
This issue of the Economic Review presents the papers, commentaries, and discussions from an August 2006 conference that assessed the legislative and regulatory changes in the banking industry during the past two decades and discussed the challenges still ahead.

Safe and Sound Banking Twenty Years Later: What Was Proposed and What Has Been Adopted
Frederick T. Furlong and Simon H. Kwan
This article assesses the extent to which legislative, regulatory, and supervisory changes regarding depository institutions have aligned with the recommendations made twenty years ago in Perspectives on Safe and Sound Banking (Benston et al. 1986).

Safety, Soundness, and the Evolution of the U.S. Banking Industry
Robert DeYoung
Analyzing the fundamental structural changes in the U.S. commercial banking industry since the 1980s, the author compares the "transactions banking" business model practiced by large financial companies to the more traditional relationship-based banking business model.

Supervising Bank Safety and Soundness: Some Open Issues
Mark J. Flannery
The author focuses on seven underresearched and underappreciated issues that affect bank safety and soundness or financial system stability. Many of these issues are similar those that Benston et al. discussed in 1986.

Roundtable Discussion: Reflection on Twenty Years of Bank Regulatory Reform
George J. Benston, Robert A. Eisenbeis, Paul Horvitz, Edward J. Kane, and George Kaufman
The five authors commissioned by the American Bankers Association in 1986 to assess the banking industry and recommend regulatory policy options reflect on the industry's past twenty years, its current status, and its future direction.

Staff