Columbia's Fred Mishkin exposed for promoting Iceland's "prudential regulation"

We have previously blogged on Iceland's precipitous financial collapse, and linked through to American organisations pushing their toxic anarcho-capitalist agenda in that country. Now check out this link which explores the contribution of Columbia University's Fred Mishkin. Embarrassingly for him, just before the financial crisis washed over Iceland, Mishkin penned a rather ill-conceived report on financial liberalisation in that country claiming that "prudential regulation and supervision is generally quite strong" on the basis of absolutely no research or in-depth analysis, and failing to register that the report was funded by the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce - whoops, not the first time we find senior academics and / or business schools failing to declare potential conflicts of interest. Do watch the video link here and watch Mishkin fail to answer the questions about his professional conduct.

Many factors have contributed to financial and economic crises around the world. With a few honourable exceptions, academic economists have played their own shabby little part, imposing an intellectual straitjacket on debate and failing to understand the limitations of their petty theories which seldom have even the remotest link to human realities. It is frightening that people like Mishkin ended up directing the Federal Reserve.