Hester M. Peirce is a Commissioner at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This post is based on her recent remarks at the 17th Annual SEC Conference, Center for Corporate Reporting and Governance, available here. The views expressed in this post are those of Ms. Peirce and do not necessarily reflect those of the Securities and Exchange Commission or its staff.
Good morning and thank you, Fram, for the kind introduction. Before I begin my remarks, I have to give my standard disclaimer, which is that my remarks reflect only my own views and not those of the Commission or my fellow Commissioners.
I greatly appreciate the opportunity to be part of this conference. Last time I flew to California, the skies were so clear that I was able to keep an eye on the changing landscape below all the way across the country. The vastness and great variety was striking. Having grown up in Ohio, I can attest to the fact that the magnificence of the landscape is just one of the features that makes so-called flyover country remarkably beautiful. The wealth of talent and ingenuity in the people of the heartland is where the real beauty lies.
Indeed, one of the issues on which I am committed to working with Chairman Clayton and my fellow commissioners is ways to unlock the deep potential of the middle of the country by ensuring that our securities laws do not inadvertently prevent people from investing in their own communities. Accredited investor rules, for example, have a different effect in Ohio, where incomes pale in comparison to lofty coastal paychecks. We also can work with states to ensure that the SEC does not stand in the way of state efforts to create innovation-friendly regulatory regimes. As the Chairman said when he spoke in Nashville several weeks ago, “There are obviously a lot of miles, many good, talented people, and many promising companies between the coasts,” and I agree with the Chairman that we should “make sure our regulation of capital formation enables capital to flow to the areas in between.” [1]
