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James R. Barth

James R. Barth is the Lowder Eminent Scholar in Finance at Auburn University and a Senior Finance Fellow at the Milken Institute. His research focuses on financial institutions and capital markets, both domestic and global, with special emphasis on regulatory issues. He has served as leader of an international team advising the People’s Bank of China on banking reform and traveled to China, India, Russia, and Egypt to lecture on various financial topics for the U.S. State Department. He was interviewed about the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the Congressional Oversight Panel. An appointee of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, Barth was chief economist of the Office of Thrift Supervision and previously the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. He has also held the positions of professor of economics at George Washington University, associate director of the economics program at the National Science Foundation, and Shaw Foundation Professor of Banking and Finance at Nanyang Technological University. He has been a visiting scholar at the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the World Bank. Barth has testified before the U.S. House and Senate banking committees on several occasions.

Barth has authored more than 200 articles in professional journals and has written and edited several books, including The Rise and Fall of the U.S. Mortgage and Credit Markets: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Meltdown; Rethinking Bank Regulation: Till Angels Govern; Financial Restructuring and Reform in Post-WTO China; China’s Emerging Markets: Challenges and Opportunities; The Great Savings and Loan Debacle; and The Reform of Federal Deposit Insurance. His most recent book is Guardians of Finance: Making Regulators Work for Us. Barth is the coeditor of The Journal of Financial Economic Policy and overseas associate editor of The Chinese Banker. He has been quoted in news publications ranging from The New York Times, The Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal to Time and Newsweek. In addition, he has appeared on such broadcast programs as Newshour, Good Morning America, Moneyline, Bloomberg News, Fox Business News, and National Public Radio. Barth is also included in Who’s Who in Economics: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Economists, 1700 to 1995.