Americans demanded retribution from the mortgage lenders whose subprime loans defaulted and from investment bankers whose mortgage-backed securities sharply declined in value in 2007, leading to financial panic and the Great Recession. From 2008 to 2019, the federal government extracted hundreds of billions in fines from dozens of corporations, but few individual business executives were held accountable, and no senior banker was convicted of a crime. I use the trial court record of five government enforcement cases against individuals to explain this apparently anomalous result. I conclude that, in addition to a lack of funding, the prosecution effort was hindered by the government’s erroneous selection of cases to pursue. Further, the diffused nature of decision making in the mortgage finance market made it difficult to prove that any one senior-level participant had the criminal intent necessary for a conviction or a Securities and Exchange Commission civil fine or injunction. The trial results also support the argument that the growth and consolidation of investment banks from 1990 to 2008 created incentives for misconduct within the firms.

2007 年，美国人要求次级贷款违约的抵押贷款人和抵押贷款支持证券价值急剧下跌的投资银行家进行报复，这导致了金融恐慌和大衰退。从2008年到2019年，联邦政府对数十家企业征收了数千亿的罚款，但个别企业高管被追究责任的寥寥无几，也没有高级银行家被定罪。我用五起针对个人的政府执法案件的初审法庭记录来解释这个明显反常的结果。我的结论是，除了缺乏资金外，起诉工作还因政府错误选择要追究的案件而受阻。更远，抵押贷款融资市场决策的分散性使得很难证明任何一名高级参与者具有定罪或证券交易委员会民事罚款或禁令所必需的犯罪意图。试验结果还支持这样的论点，即 1990 年至 2008 年投资银行的发展和整合为公司内部的不当行为创造了动机。