The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) recently proposed accounting standards for U.S. government-related insurance programs and is seeking public comment through March 29, 2016. Programs under consideration include insurance and non-loan guarantee programs authorized by law to comp...

MIT GCFP Blog Series

In a comment letter to the Office of Management and Budget on Circular A-4 that guides federal agencies in conducting benefit-cost analyses, a dozen MIT professors, many affiliated with the Golub Center for Finance and Policy, offered suggestions [...]

China’s Growing Local Government Debt Levels - New MIT Report provides a snapshot of debt levels over time

In the latest installment of the GCFP Distinguished Speaker Series, Jack Brennan, Chairman of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Board of Governors, discussed the [...]

High rates of debt growth by local governments are a cause for concern in any country. In China, where recent turmoil in the equity and foreign-exchange markets has put a spotlight on that country’s economy and growth prospects, increasing levels of borrowing by provincial and other lower levels of ...

The advent of mandatory central clearing for certain types of over-the-counter derivatives and margin requirements for others means that margin is the most important mitigation mechanism for many [...]

The Center for Finance and Policy (CFP) hosted a conference in Washington DC on October 29, 2015 — along with PricewaterhouseCoopers and the American Society of Public Administration — to bring together lending practitioners within [...]

It is with great pleasure that I transition to my new role as the inaugural executive director of MIT’s Center for Finance and Policy (CFP). As someone who has focused on government financial institutions for many years, I welcome this new beginning as a chance to direct sunlight towards a unique se...

On July 1, 2016, the U.S. territory, which has been mired in a years-long debt crisis, failed to make good on $2 billion of bond payments due, triggering the worst default in its history. Puerto Rico’s governor Alejandro García Padilla has defended the decision to skip the full payment, emphasizing ...