The Structure of Securities Markets
The effectiveness and efficiency of securities markets in processing transactions in hundreds of millions of shares each day, at an annual cost of billions of dollars, deserves more attention from the financial press and the public than it customarily receives.
It should receive the attention of the new Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Harvey Pitt, as he sets his agenda. He will confront few issues of greater importance, but he will not be writing on a clean slate. For the last quarter century, the SEC has been pursuing the goal of a national market system (NMS), without a clear specification of what that might be. Based on the discussion at its annual meeting in July, 2001, the Financial Economists Roundtable (FER) adopted the following statement to help guide policy makers in their oversight of the nation's securities markets.
