Frederic Mishkin

Frederic Mishkin is Frederic Stanley "Rick" Mishkin (born 11 January 1951) is an American economist and professor at the Columbia Business School. He was a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 2006 to 2008.

Renaud Lambert writes:

In Inside Job, Ferguson interviewed the economist Frederic Mishkin of Columbia Business School:

— In 2006 you co-authored a study of Iceland’s financial system [which stated] ‘Iceland is an advanced country with excellent institutions, low corruption, rule of law. The economy has already adjusted to financial liberalisation, while prudential regulation and supervision is generally quite strong.’

Mishkin: “And that was the mistake. [In 2008, the Icelandic economy collapsed.] It turns out that the prudential regulation and supervision was not strong in Iceland.”

— What led you to think that it was?

Mishkin: “I think that you go with the information you [have]. And, generally, the view was that Iceland had very good institutions and was a very advanced country.”

— Who told you that? What kind of research did you do?

Mishkin: “You talk to people, you have faith in the central bank, which actually did fall down on the job…”

— Why do you have faith in the central bank?

Mishkin: “You go with the information you have…”

— How much were you paid to write?

Mishkin: “I was paid… Uh… I think the number was… It’s public information.” [Mishkin was paid $124,000 by the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce to write the paper.]

— On your CV, the title of this report has been changed from ‘Financial Stability in Iceland’ to ‘Financial Instability in Iceland’.

Mishkin: “Oh... Well, I don’t know… Whatever it is… If there's a typo, there’s a typo.”

Affiliations

• Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve from 5 September 2006 until 31 August 2008.

References

External resources

• Inside Job (film), Wikipedia, Inside Job. The film is described by director Charles H. Ferguson as being about "the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption."

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