Rating agencies: an information privilege whose time has passed

Nicolas Véron argues rating agencies have failed the marketplace in the run-up to the crisis, as their risk assessment processes have been found wanting on a number of counts. It is not clear that conflicts of interests have been the root cause of this serious failure, even if such conflicts may have existed. More regulation of rating agencies will not be a sufficient response to the challenge posed by the agencies recent failings, and carries risks of its own. What is needed is a deeper change in the structure of the market for financial risk assessment services.

Administrative Agencies: A Comparison of New Hampshire and Federal Agencies’ History, Structure and Rulemaking Requirements

[Excerpt] In this day and age it is difficult to think of anything that is not regulated in some way by a state or federal agency. State and federal agencies routinely make decisions that impact our daily lives. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, and the places where we live and work are all regulated to some extent. Agencies sometimes regulate things in ways that lead to strange results. For example, New Hampshire, state regulations allow anyone to own a yak, a bison, a wild boar, or an emu, but do not permit a person to own a capuchin monkey unless that person is an “exhibitor” of animals. This may not seem like a big deal, but the result of this restriction is that people with disabilities cannot possess a capuchin monkey as a service animal unless they qualify as an “exhibitor.” Most people with disabilities that need a capuchin monkey as a service animal will not meet the “exhibitor” requirements. They don’t intend to exhibit the animal; they just need the animal to help them with daily activities. Therefore, the result of the agency’s rules is that people in New Hampshire are able to possess yaks or wild boar with little or no agency oversight, but cannot possess an animal that will bring great benefit to their daily lives. This article discusses where New Hampshire and federal agencies obtain the authority to make agency rules or regulations, and the similarities and differences in the way they make them. This article also compares the way that New Hampshire and federal agencies are structured and controlled by the executive and legislative branches of government

Rating agencies and sovereign credit risk assessment

Credit rating agencies (CRAs) have not consistently met the expectations placed on them by investors and policymakers. It is difficult, however, to improve the quality of ratings through regulatory initiatives. In the short term, changes to the CRAsâ?? regulatory environment, in a context of high market uncertainty, may add to market stress. The role of credit ratings in regulation should be reduced but eliminating it entirely would have significant downsides, at least in the short term. The transfer of ratings responsibility to public authorities, including the European Central Bank, is unlikely to be a good alternative because of inherent conflicts of interest. The notion of risk-free sovereign bonds is challenged by the crisis, but the most straightforward way to address this challenge in the euro-area context would be the establishment of a euro-area-wide sovereign bond instrument. This Policy Contribution was prepared as a briefing paper for the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committeeâ??s Monetary Dialogue

LSA And State Library Agencies

To know where our state libraries are going, it is important first to know where they have been and where they are now. Without going into this exhaustively, let me develop with you for a few moments some of the things that have happened to us in the five years since the Library Services Act became the law of the land. I think we are all aware of the fact that the r improvement in our state library agencies is one of the principal accomplishments of the Library Services Act. The publication, State Plans under the Library Services Act. Supplement 2, A makes this quite clear. State after state reported strengthened state library agencies in all parts of the country. Idaho, for example, employed its first trained administrator and three more professional librarians in the state agency. Kansas and Mississippi added professional librarians and clerical assistants. It was not just the small state agencies that did this, however; even the New York State Library built on its existing strength by adding specialists in Young Adult, Reference, and Children's Services. In all, more than 115 field workers or consultants were added to state agency staffs, an increase of more than 100 per cent over the total field staffs in existence in 1956. In addition, 285 other professional librarians were added.published or submitted for publicatio

Agencies Obligation to Interpret the Statute

Conventionally, when a statute delegates authority to an agency, courts defer to agency interpretations of that statute. Most agencies and scholars view such deference as a grant of permission to the agency to adopt any reasonable interpretation. That is wrong, jurisprudentially and ethically. An agency that commands deference bears a duty to adopt what it believes to be the best interpretation of the relevant statute. Deference assigns to the agency, rather than to a court, power authoritatively to declare what the law is. That power carries with it a duty to give the statute the best reading the agency can. Notwithstanding substantial jurisprudential disagreement about what it means to give a statute its best interpretation, an agency does not abide its role when it seems to achieve anything less. An agency is legally and ethically obligated to privilege what it views as optimal statutory interpretation over what it considers to be optimal policy. If the two conflict, as they sometimes will, the agency must act consistently with the former to the detriment of the latter. To behave otherwise is to fail to adhere to principles of legislative supremacy and fidelity to law

Conditions of registration for all regulated social care services and categories of registration for children’s homes and voluntary adoption agencies

"Ofsted’s policy on conditions of registration for children’s homes, residential family centres, adoption support agencies, voluntary adoption agencies and independent fostering agencies, and on categories of registration for voluntary adoption agencies and children’s homes" - front cover