Jurisdictional rivalry between agencies shaped the index futures market’s creation.

Evidence

The careful wording kept the financial derivatives traded by the Merc and the Board of Trade in the 1970s under the jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and away from that of the SEC. But despite having failed to notice the threat to its “turf” contained in the 1974 wording, the SEC could not fail to be aware of and unhappy about the emergence of new financial derivatives outside its jurisdiction. Allowing its regulatory rival authority over futures on stock indices would have been yet a further incursion into its “turf.” — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 765

Categorization

  • XREF: Plugs into wider literature on regulatory competition and ‘turf’ as a driver of market structure. — connects to: Modern financial markets are deliberately designed entities — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1235

Broader Connections