Speaker biographies

Robert E. Litan is vice president for research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation, a senior fellow in the Economic Studies and Global Studies Programs at the Brookings Institution, and co-director of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center on Regulatory Studies. He is coauthor with Mr. Wallison of The GAAP Gap: Corporate Disclosure in the Internet Age (AEI Press, 2000). Mr. Litan is the author, coauthor, or co-editor of more than thirty books and 200 articles on financial and economic topics. He has been vice president and director of economic studies at Brookings, an associate director of the Office of Management and Budget, deputy assistant attorney general in the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice, a consultant for the Treasury Department, a member of the Commission on the Causes of the Savings and Loan Crisis, and a staff economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Peter J. Wallison joined AEI in 1999, and is currently a senior fellow and co-director of AEI’s program on financial market deregulation. He previously practiced banking, corporate, and financial law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, DC and New York. From June 1981 to January 1985, Mr. Wallison was general counsel of the United States Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan administration’s proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. He also served as general counsel to the Depository Institutions Deregulation Committee and participated in the Treasury Department’s efforts to deal with the debt held by less-developed countries. During 1986 and 1987, he was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan. Between 1972 and 1976, Mr. Wallison served first as special assistant to Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, as counsel to Mr. Rockefeller when he was vice president of the United States. Mr. Wallison is the author of Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency (Westview Press, 2002). He is also the author of Back from the Brink (AEI Press, 1990), a proposal for a private deposit insurance system, and coauthor of Nationalizing Mortgage Risk: The Growth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (AEI Press, 2000) and The GAAP Gap: Corporate Disclosure in the Internet Age (AEI Press, 2000). He is the editor of Optional Federal Chartering and Regulation of Insurance Companies (AEI Press, 2000) and Serving Two Masters, Yet Out of Control: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (AEI Press, 2001).

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