Professor John Coates: "The Power of Twelve: When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything"

Professor John Coates

John F. Cogan, Jr. Professor of Law and Economics at

Harvard Law School

John Coates, John F. Cogan, Jr. Professor of Law and Economics at Harvard Law School, has published The Problem of Twelve: When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything. The book analyzes the Big Four index funds of Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, and BlackRock as well as the rise of private equity, which Coates calls “a quiet accumulation” in how power and capital is concentrated which “represents a dramatic transformation in how the American economy operates.”

John Coates is the John F. Cogan, Jr. Professor of Law and Economics at Harvard Law School, where he also serves as Deputy Dean and Research Director of the Center on the Legal Profession. Professor Coates served as General Counsel and as Acting Director for the Division of Corporation Finance for the SEC. Before joining Harvard, he was a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, specializing in financial institutions and M&A. At HLS and at HBS, he teaches corporate governance, M&A, finance, and related topics. He has testified before Congress, advised the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the U.S. Department of Treasury, and the New York Stock Exchange, and served as the Chair of the Investor-as-Owner Subcommittee of the Investor Advisory Committee of the SEC.

Professor Coates’s most recent publication is The Problem of Twelve: When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything

Please note that for security reasons, you will be asked to present a government issued photo identification to gain entrance into the Federal Reserve Bank.