Excerpt
August 19, 2024, Opinion: "George Stigler’s Public Regulation of Securities Markets, published in April 1964, marked a turning point in academic perspectives on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Anticipating by more than a decade other economically oriented scholars like Homer Kripke and George Benston, Stigler challenged the Commission’s status atop the pantheon of New Deal administrative agencies. Specifically, Stigler’s article targeted the theoretical and empirical foundations of the then recently released Report of the Special Study chaired by a prominent SEC attorney, Milton H. Cohen. Stigler’s critique asserted: “[T]he Cohen Report makes poor use of either empirical evidence or economic theory, so its criticisms are founded upon prejudice and its reforms are directed by wishfulness.”"