Recently in the United States, a massive new financial regulation law came into effect. This law is the result of the 2008 financial crisis that started in the US and eventually engulfed the entire world. The primary purpose of the bill is to improve accountability and stability in the financial system and to end the TBTF (too-big-to-fail) syndrome. The bill has been a result of long process of bargaining and lobbying, and there have been opposing views on whether it will actually be effective or it is mere a surrender to Wall Street lobbyists.

Regardless of what it succeeds in doing, it has some interesting features, one of which is the establishment of an 'Office of Financial Research'. One of the jobs of the new organization is 'data collection, applied research and essential long-term research, and developing tools for monitoring risk'. The new organisation is being set up keeping in mind the fact that the 2008 financial crisis was a result of the US government's ignorance about the happenings in the financial sector. The government had data and some statistics, but no actual research that was not driven by some other motives. As someone who is professionally involved in financial research and analysis, I find this idea most interesting. All research is driven by a motive, by a desire to find the answers to a specific set of questions. Financial research is generally driven by the desire to give the user of the research an advantage in terms of generating higher returns than others who are competitors. It is always focused on costs and efficiency and ignores everything that is not related to its goals. Academic research, likewise, has its own set of motives and is generally limited by design and resources to answering a narrow set of questions.

The purpose of the US Office of Financial Research is to conduct sustained research on the financial markets with the specific goal of detecting system-wide risks and malpractices. This is something that cannot be done by second hand research that was originally intended for some other purposes. In India, various government bodies and regulators have their own monitoring systems in place with varying degrees of effectiveness. However, the idea of broad-based financial research done with the specific goal of uncovering potential problems is something that is worth examining.