Brian Knight

Brian Knight is a Senior Research Fellow and the Director of Innovation and Governance at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Brian’s research focuses on numerous aspects of financial regulation, including the use and abuse of financial regulation and services as a way for public and private actors to de facto regulate while avoiding the constitutional and procedural protections guaranteed to Americans. Brian's work presents a middle ground between treating firms as public utilities or assuming away concerns because financial firms are nominally private actors. As such, he is sometimes criticized by both sides of the political spectrum, though his work has also helped influence legislative and regulatory attempts to reign in the abuse of financial services firms' power while preventing them from becoming public utilities.

He has also worked on financial privacy and surveillance issues, including testifying and submitting written statements before subcommittees of the House Judiciary and Financial Services committees.

Brian has also done significant work on financial innovation, including regulatory sandboxes, where he has helped inform the "American model" of sandboxes since their beginning, as well as issues surrounding fintech and federalism.

Brian has served as lead author on two Supreme Court amicus briefs in the National Rifle Association v. Vullo case, has testified before Congress multiple times, and has been sole or lead author on several law journal articles on various topics.

Brian received his law degree from the University of Virginia and his bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary.

His Mercatus Center profile is available here: https://www.mercatus.org/scholars/brian-knight