The First Step in Bank Deregulation: What about the FDIC?
论证了若继续按现行方式为商业银行债权人提供保险，则必须对受保银行进行有效监管；同时探讨了国会可对FDIC采取的改革选项，包括关闭FDIC、改变定价政策等。
If insuring creditors of commercial banks in the way they have been insured since mid-1933 is justified, then so is regulation of so-called insured banks, those with creditors insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). In creating the FDIC, the Congress mandated a pricing policy: all banks with FDIC-insured creditors were to be charged alike; more particularly, the FDIC was not to charge insured banks according to the riskiness of their respective balance sheets. Nor has it ever. Yet, with an insurance premium that is constant across balance sheets, there is an incentive for risk taking. And thus, unless insured banks are to be as risky as profit maximization dictates, they must, one way or another, be effectively regulated; they must, that is, be limited by regulation to appropriately risky balance sheets. It does not follow that U.S. bank regulatory policy of the years since 1933 is beyond criticism. For example, we must wonder about the geographical restrictions imposed under the McFadden Act and the Douglas Amendment to the Bank Holding Company Act. But it does follow that if banks with FDIC-insured creditors are to be made entirely free, except perhaps of reserve requirements, or even largely free, then it is necessary to either close up the FDIC or, if doing that seems unwise, change FDIC policy. There has already been some deregulation. Most importantly, Regulation Q has been made much less effective than it was; and evidently it has been marked to become, very soon, a thing of the past. So far, however, beyond deregulating, the Congress has not bestirred itself. The FDIC is still occupying its Washington corner. Although FDIC officials have hinted at change, its policy is still by and large what it was. And the Congress, being ever so respectful of the consumer lobby, may never want to do anything. Nevertheless, in this paper I consider various things it might do: namely, close down the FDIC, but at the same time impose a new valuation rule for bank portfolios; change FDIC pricing policy; and, lastly, without doing anything else, simply close down the FDIC. I do not end up by saying what, as I believe, the Congress ought to do. My purpose is only to determine, as best I am able, which of those several apparent congressional options of mine are in reality feasible. I would add, however, that the Congress, if bent on deregulating banks or obliging the regulatory agencies, has more to do than decide what to do about the FDIC. It seems also to be bent on deregulating or allowing the deregulation of savings and loan associations. There has already been more deregulation of savings and loan associations than of banks. So the Congress has also to decide what to do about the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC). Fortunately, to explore what it might do about the FDIC is perforced to explore what it might do about the FSLIC.