The Aspen Institute Center for Business Education has issued a report detailing recommendations for business and government action to address the economic crisis from a group of business leaders, top business and law faculty, and senior representatives from the investment and foundation worlds. Based on the proceedings of a roundtable that was held in collaboration with New York University Stern School of Business and with support from Ernst & Young, the report explores this distinguished group’s suggestions, including

• Creating a systemic risk regulator
• Pricing systemic risk
• Limiting the destructive capacity of derivatives
• Fostering a long-term focus in business

Taking part in the discussion were former SEC Chairman William H. Donaldson, NYU Stern School of Business Dean Thomas Cooley, Columbia Business School professor Amar Bhidé and Columbia Law professor John Coffee, as well as other leading representatives from academia, business, institutional investment, and the foundation world. A full list of attendees is attached to this release.

Participants at the roundtable also discussed how business and law faculty can give their students a nuanced understanding of complex market mechanisms, and instill a sense of professional integrity. They urged academics to engage with the popular media, and called on them to think critically about how the models and approaches that dominate academic thinking and research on financial and economic topics might have contributed to the crisis.

The Aspen Institute is well known for convening leading thinkers and providing thought leadership on issues that are critical to public debate. Aspen’s Center for Business Education (AspenCBE.org) specializes in topics at the intersection of business and society and in fostering dialogue among business schools about how best to prepare the next generation of business leaders.

The paper is available at http://www.aspencbe.org/documents/TowardBetterFinancialMarketRegulationInDepth.pdf.

Roundtable Participants

William Allen, Jack H. Nusbaum Professor of Law and Business; Director, Pollack Center for Law and Business, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University

Amar Bhidé, Lawrence D. Glaubinger Professor of Business, Columbia Business School

John Biggs, Executive-in-Residence, Leonard N. Stern School of Business

Bruce Buchanan, C.W. Nichols Professor of Business Ethics; Director, Markets, Ethics and Law Program, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University

Leonardo Burlamaqui, Program Officer, The Ford Foundation

John Coffee, Adolf A. Berle Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

Thomas Cooley, Richard R. West Dean; Paganelli-Bull Professor of Economics, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University

William H. Donaldson, Chairman & CEO, Donaldson Enterprises Inc.; former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission

Charles Elson, Edgar S. Woolard Chair in Corporate Governance; Director, John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, Lerner College of Business and Economics,University of Delaware

J. Michael Farren, Retired Corporate Secretary and General Counsel, Xerox Corporation; former White House Deputy Counsel

Daniel Feldman, Special Counsel for Law and Policy, Office of the New York State Comptroller

Felice Friedman, Director, Global Public Policy, Ernst & Young LLP

Rich Leimsider, Director, The Aspen Institute Center for Business Education

Sylvia Maxfield, Associate Professor of Management, Simmons College School of Management

Krishen Mehta, Advisor, The Aspen Institute Business and Society Program

George Muñoz, Principle, Muñoz Investment Banking

Steven Schwarcz, Stanley A. Star Professor of Law and Business, Duke University School of Law

Don Vangel, Partner; Director, Bank Regulatory Services, Ernst & Young LLP

David Walker, President and CEO, Peter G. Peterson Foundation

Lawrence White, Arthur E. Imperatore Professor of Economics; Deputy Department Chair, Economics, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University