Regulatory report card: how effective was Mary Schapiro as SEC chair?

The Securities and Exchange Commission released a list of Mary Schapiro’s accomplishments as SEC chair. Among them, a record number of enforcement actions—more than 1450 from 2011 and 2012—and 129 separate enforcement actions against individuals and entities with fines that totaled $2.6 billion. However, Shapiro’s critics have a list, too, but of her failures. They say record regulatory action was not exceptional given the financial crisis and the amount of fraud that had taken place. Implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law is moving at a snail’s pace, reform of the money market fund industry has gone nowhere, and little has been done to curb risks in high-frequency trading.