Prof. Michael S. Barr

Professor Michael S. Barr, a member of the faculty since 2001, teaches Financial Institutions, International Finance, Financial Derivatives, Transnational Law, and Jurisdiction and Choice of Law, and co-founded the International Transactions Clinic. He was on leave from 2009-2010, serving as the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions, and was a key architect of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. He is currently a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and the Brookings Institution.

Professor Barr conducts large-scale empirical research regarding financial services and researches and writes about a wide range of issues in financial regulation. Recent books include No Slack: The Financial Lives of Low-Income Americans (Brookings Press, 2012), Insufficient Funds(Russell Sage, 2009, co-edited with Rebecca Blank), andBuilding Inclusive Financial Systems (Brookings Press, 2007, co-edited with Anjali Kumar and Robert Litan). Professor Barr previously served as Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin's Special Assistant, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, as Special Advisor to President William J. Clinton, as a special advisor and counselor on the policy planning staff at the State Department, and as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter and Judge Pierre N. Leval, then of the Southern District of New York. He received his JD from Yale Law School, his MPhil in international relations from Magdalen College, Oxford University, as a Rhodes Scholar, and his BA, summa cum laude, with honors in history, from Yale University.