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Photo: Michael Barr

Michael S. Barr
Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions

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Michael S. Barr was confirmed by the United States Senate May 21, 2009 to serve as the Department of the Treasury's Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions. As Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions, Barr is responsible for developing and coordinating Treasury's policies on legislative and regulatory issues affecting financial institutions. 

Barr has taught Financial Institutions, International Finance, Transnational Law, and Jurisdiction and Choice of Law, and co-founded the International Transactions Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School. He has also served as a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and at the Brookings Institution. Barr has researched and written about a wide range of issues in financial regulation. He has conducted large-scale empirical research regarding financial services and low- and moderate-income households. Barr recently co-edited Building Inclusive Financial Systems (Brookings Press 2007, with Kumar & Litan) and Insufficient Funds (Russell Sage 2008, with Blank).

Barr previously served as Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin's Special Assistant, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, as Special Advisor to President William J. Clinton, as a special advisor and counselor on the policy planning staff at the State Department, and as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter and then-District Court Judge Pierre N. Leval of the Southern District of New York.

Barr received his J.D. from Yale Law School, an M. Phil in International Relations from Magdalen College, Oxford University, as a Rhodes Scholar, and his B.A., summa cum laude, with Honors in History, from Yale University. He is married and has three children.


Last Updated: June 23, 2009