WASHINGTON – The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board on Tuesday announced it will hire Simon Wu, a director with Berkeley Research Group here, to be its chief economist starting on Feb. 6.
Wu, who provided financial economic expertise on a wide array of securities and banking issues while at BRG, has nearly two decades of experience using his economic expertise in securities policymaking, according to the MSRB.
He will be in charge of overseeing the economic analyses associated with the MSRB's rulemaking and muni market transparency initiatives. He will also lead related statistical, econometric, and financial analyses for the self-regulator.
"Simon brings a wealth of economic and regulatory experience with him to the MSRB," said MSRB executive director Lynnette Kelly. "He will help the MSRB continue to apply its policy on the use of economic analysis in rulemaking and provide quantitative support to the MSRB's efforts to increase transparency and efficiency in the municipal market."
The MSRB has a policy on the use of economic analysis in rulemaking. The economic considerations are meant to inform any rulemaking instead of simply determining it, according to the MSRB. The key elements of any analysis of a proposed rule by the self-regulator are: identifying the need for it and explaining how it will meet that need; articulating a baseline against which to measure the likely economic impact of it; identifying and evaluating alternative regulatory approaches; and assessing the benefits and costs, both quantitative and qualitative, of it as well as the main reasonable alternative regulatory approaches.
Municipal market groups have complained in comment letters on several recent MSRB regulatory initiatives that they will unnecessarily burden participants. Dealers, who have consistently said it is important for regulators to consider the cumulative impact of the steady rulemaking during the last few years, most recently complained about the MSRB's markup disclosure rule, which they said will force dealers to take costly and time consuming technological steps to comply.
Municipal advisors have expressed some concern about how new rulemakings may affect the smaller MA firms in the market that have fewer resources.
Before BRG, Wu was vice president at NERA Economic Consulting where he was a financial expert on securities trading, market structure, best execution, investment management, and financial institution risk management. He has also served as chief economist at the Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General. He won the inspector general award in 2012 and 2014. Wu started his career as a senior economist with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority where he led economic studies of rule proposals and policy analyses.
He has a bachelor's degree from Belmont University and master's and doctorate degrees in economics from Vanderbilt University.
