Dr. Mason is Full Professor of Finance and Hermann Moyse/Louisiana Bankers Association Chair of Banking at the Ourso School of Business at Louisiana State University and Senior Fellow at the Wharton School. Prior to joining LSU, Dr. Mason was Associate Professor at Drexel University. From 1995-1998, Dr. Mason was a Financial Economist at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Through his career, Dr. Mason has been a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (2009-present), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (2005-2007), and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia (1999-2003), and has been a fellow with the Wharton School since 2000. Dr. Mason has testified before numerous Congressional Committees, European Parliament, the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Securities Exchange Commission.

Dr. Mason’s academic research focuses primarily on business cycle persistence, financial and economic crises, and structured finance. His area of research emphasis emphasizes the role of regulation in achieving market efficiency and liquidity in thinly-traded assets and illiquid market conditions as well as the efficacy of bailout and resolution policies through the history of financial markets. He has published academic articles in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, the Journal of Banking and Finance, the Journal of Financial Services Research, and many other journals and books.

Dr. Mason’s consulting practice provides firms with advice on financial, political, and legal risks in banking and finance. Dr. Mason has consulted on issues ranging from mortgage, home equity loan, home equity line of credit, auto, and credit card servicing, and securitization, to discrimination and disparate impact in consumer lending and insurance pricing, valuing distressed securities, the investor recoveries and efficient liquidations of bankrupt firms, and economic valuations of complex investment and lending arrangements involving asset-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, and hedge funds.

He writes a regular column for Credit magazine, has published numerous articles in professional journals, and has published op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and the American Banker. He appeared in CNBC’s House of Cards and PBS FrontLine’s Secret History of the Credit Card, and has made numerous appearances on CNBC and Bloomberg Television. His economic commentary and research on securitization and financial crises is cited regularly in broadcast media and print around the world.

Recent Blog Posts by Joseph Mason

• The Obama Administration’s Regulatory Capture April 6th, 2011
• Mortgage Foreclosures, Modifications, and Economic Recovery March 17th, 2011
• National Servicing Standards – Again December 13th, 2010
• Structural Reform Is More Powerful than Fiscal or Monetary Policy November 16th, 2010
• Keeping Our Eyes on the (Economic Recovery) Prize October 28th, 2010
• Foreclosure Delays Are Not a Problem – Unless We Make Them One October 15th, 2010
• Why Basel III Is Not Enough September 16th, 2010
• Financial, Man-made, and Natural Disasters Require Consistent Policy Responses August 4th, 2010
• The Economic Cost of a Moratorium on Offshore Oil and Gas Exploration to the Gulf Region July 20th, 2010
• A Final Chance to Strip Down Regulatory Reform June 30th, 2010
• Making Rating Agencies Liable for All of Wall Street’s Wrongs Is Not Right June 17th, 2010
• Credit Default Swaps on Government Debt: Potential Implications of the Greek Debt Crisis May 6th, 2010
• If SEC v. Goldman Typifies the Crisis, Congressional Reform Misses the Point April 29th, 2010
• The Importance of NBER Announcement Dates April 21st, 2010
• Why Believe Bank Earnings Yet? April 14th, 2010
• Waxman’s Witch Hunt and U.S. Business Intimidation April 7th, 2010
• Dodd Offers Improvement, But Not Finality March 17th, 2010
• Prerequisites for a Standalone Securitization Market February 17th, 2010
• Impulse and Propagation Mechanisms and Regulatory Reform February 3rd, 2010
• Letter to Ben Bernanke January 26th, 2010
• The Outlook for 2010: A Critique of Modern Monetary Policy January 19th, 2010
• The Outlook for 2010: Bank Failures and Bank Losses Ahead January 12th, 2010
• The House Solution to Private Firms that are Too-big-to-fail is to make them Public Government Sponsored Enterprises December 16th, 2009
• Carbon: The New Financial Frontier December 8th, 2009
• Prompt Corrective Action for All is Unnecessary and Unworkable December 1st, 2009
• TBTF is not about Size, it’s about Information November 20th, 2009
• Crisis Inevitably Breeds Leviathan November 11th, 2009
• Ratings Reform is Easy – Just follow the conflicts of interest November 6th, 2009
• What if Regulating Executive Pay Doesn’t Work? A Brief Primer on the Limits to Knowledge in Corporate Governance Research October 27th, 2009
• Why Would Anyone Believe Bank Earnings Yet? October 20th, 2009
• Why Sheila Bair’s Remarks about Repos are Really, Really Important October 6th, 2009
• TALF as a Permanent Lender of Last Resort September 29th, 2009
• The CFPA does not need Preemption September 25th, 2009
• Those Who Really Saw the Crisis Coming also Know How it Ends September 16th, 2009
• Ratings Reform, Redux August 26th, 2009
• The Green Shoots that are Healthy don’t Taste Good to many Administration Officials August 11th, 2009
• Mortgage Modification, Full Speed Ahead! July 29th, 2009
• There are Three, not Two, Kinds of Financial Institutions in the New Resolution Regime July 21st, 2009
• How to Expand an Asymmetric Information Crisis July 7th, 2009
• Inflation Expectations and Failed Debt Auctions April 1st, 2009
• It’s not really a Toxic Asset Program, but it’s a Good Start March 24th, 2009
• Incentives are being Embedded in Second-best Solutions March 19th, 2009
• Servicer Reporting can do more for Mortgage Modification than Government Subsidies March 11th, 2009
• AIG is a Hedge Fund – and so are Large Impaired Banks March 6th, 2009
• Stress Testing is Not Suited to Treasury Capital Policy February 17th, 2009
• What Type of Uncertainty is Treasury Addressing? February 10th, 2009
• Leadership February 3rd, 2009
• Managing Inflation Expectations and Motivating Economic Growth January 27th, 2009
• Can Inflation Targets be Trusted to Moderate Growth after the Recession? January 20th, 2009
• Are We Really Ready for Recovery? January 15th, 2009
• Lax Regulatory Enforcement and Monetary Policy Ineffectiveness December 25th, 2008
• Off-balance Sheet Accounting and Monetary Policy Ineffectiveness December 17th, 2008
• Should banks Lend? Loan Supply vs. Loan Demand December 11th, 2008
• The TARP is Dead, Long Live the TARP November 25th, 2008
• Do Mass Modifications Benefit Wall Street or Main Street? November 6th, 2008
• More Pet Projects vs. Recovery October 29th, 2008
• Can We Please get Real Relief and Reform Already? October 14th, 2008
• Treasury Program to Buy Troubled Assets (oops to Invest in Troubled Companies) October 8th, 2008
• The FDIC Should be Proud September 29th, 2008
• Notes on the Proposed House Draft Bailout September 29th, 2008
• Fundamentals and Leverage September 29th, 2008
• Crack Addicts and Bubble Markets September 22nd, 2008
• Crisis Policy is Redrawing the Boundaries of our Financial System – and not Necessarily in Productive Ways September 18th, 2008
• Treasury Policy is Close, but Ten Percent is not a Real Penalty Rate September 10th, 2008
• Message from the Front of Hurricane Gustav: Real vs. Financial Shocks and the Need for Reform September 9th, 2008
• Investors do not have to be Wiped Out in Fannie and Freddie’s Recapitalizations(but if they are taxpayers will probably be wiped out, too!) August 28th, 2008
• Restructuring, Tightened Credit, and Betting the Bank August 27th, 2008
• The FDIC’s Troubles and the New Financial Architecture August 4th, 2008
• Bad Statistics, Bad Risk Management and Government Bailouts July 24th, 2008
• Cheap Money Crowds out Real Structural Improvements July 21st, 2008
• Lessons from Bailout History II July 15th, 2008
• Everything Old is New Again – The Return of the Leverage Ratio July 10th, 2008
• Margins vs. Stability July 2nd, 2008
• Resolution Strategies June 25th, 2008
• Complex Debt June 23rd, 2008