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Nobel laureate Merton Miller has assisted so many financial organizations in regulatory and legal trouble that his name is probably scrawled above the pay phones in the lobby of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Whether it's Merrill Lynch & Co. in its Orange County trial or Nasdaq in its price-fixing scandal, the University of Chicago emeritus professor has become the expert witness to call when the feds are subpoenaing your records (Institutional Investor, September 1995).
What's in it for Miller? Good pay and a chance to expound his fundamental belief that financial firms are often the victims of overreaching regulators and prosecutors.
Miller believes that's especially true when it comes to attacks on the derivatives market. From the program trading uproars of the '80s to the Bankers Trust Co. scandal of the '90s, Miller has been the derivatives industry's greatest champion. Often working pro bono, he has constantly hammered - in speeches, testimony and articles - at laws and court rulings that would restrict derivatives use by investors and corporations.
Merton Miller on Derivatives is a collection of short speeches that displays the professor at his rhetorical best. His wit, strong opinions and powerful arguments make this book an easy read for such a complex...