Today's Economist: The Business of Paid Family Leave

Preoccupations: Leave ’Em Laughing, and Enlightened

In 1968 in San Francisco, I became a newscaster on one of the nation’s premier counterculture FM stations, KSAN (also known as the Jive 95), where we played psychedelic rock and denounced the dominant paradigm. At the time, FM stations didn’t pay very well, so the staff had to do some moonlighting to pay the rent. I recall doing voice-overs for several water bed companies.

Eventually, I grew tired of the daily news grind. In 1971, eager to try a different path, I became part of a pilgrimage of young Westerners to Asia, to study the wisdom traditions of the East. In particular, I was interested in Buddhism, and during the ’70s I repeatedly traveled to India, Myanmar and Thailand to study and practice meditation.

When we returned home, several of my friends started to teach the practices of mindfulness meditation, along with Buddhist philosophy, ethics and a smattering of ritual and ceremony. I eventually joined their ranks and traveled to various American cities to teach at meditation centers and at workshops and retreats.

Full of idealism, we offered our teaching based on the Buddhist tradition of dana, or generosity. In short, we didn’t charge for our classes and retreats. Our income was the voluntary contributions of our students. As our former teachers had told us, no price could be placed on the Buddha’s wisdom.

While this may have been a noble intention, it wasn’t a good way to earn a living. In our culture, the idea was unfamiliar, and it was hard to avoid sounding as if we were trying to send our students on a guilt trip, or, worse, as if we were begging.

Eventually, we realized that if we wanted to settle down, start families and save for later years, we had to find a reliable source of income. In the 1980s, I was a co-founder of Inquiring Mind, a Buddhist journal published in the West. In a leap of faith, the staff decided to distribute the journal on the dana system. No subscription was necessary: readers sent us their address and we’d send them the journal. Again, my income didn’t show an appreciable gain. (The journal has continued, and I remain an editor at large there.)

In the 1980s, publishers gave big advances for books with Buddhist themes, and I was able to sell them one called “Buddha’s Nature,” about how evolutionary science was confirming what the Buddha had taught. I also wrote “Crazy Wisdom,” a book about the common threads of wit and chutzpah that unite mystics, jesters and tricksters of history. I saw a lot of myself in these characters, many of whom were poor because of their wild behavior and passionate search for meaning.

AFTER those forays into the book world, I still needed to supplement my income for a few years before my meager Social Security payments started arriving. What could I do? Staying committed to my passion for meaning had sustained me over the years, but how could I make it pay off yet again and still practice the Buddhist concept of “right livelihood”?

It occurred to me that I was able to make my students laugh — a lot. Buddhism is mostly about exploring and accepting the human condition, and my teaching usually came with a few jokes about our common predicament. Over the years, I have composed some little routines that I called “misguided meditations” — Buddhist shtick based on the tradition’s profound wisdom but more directly geared toward humor.

Now I travel the Buddhist circuit, offering to teach the standard silent retreats and daylong workshops, but also offering a comic “performance” to begin or end the meditation practices. I often start my performance/lecture by telling the students, “Be here now.” Then a pause. “Whoops, you missed it! But don’t worry, the here and now will come around again soon. So stay alert.”

Recently, I have started performing in legitimate theaters, helping to bolster my income. But a friend said that because I still teach Buddhism through my comedy act, maybe I shouldn’t charge people for the show. “Remember dana,” my friend told me.

But I don’t take that caution seriously. The Buddha’s teaching may be too precious to be bought and sold, but if you can make people laugh while contemplating our common suffering, you deserve to be paid for it.

Siemens C.E.O. to Leave Following Profit Warning

Siemens said in a statement late on Saturday that at a meeting on July 31, the supervisory board would pass the decision on Loescher's early departure.

"In addition, it will decide on the appointment of a member of the managing board as President and CEO," it added.

Siemens, among Germany's three biggest companies by market value, did not provide further details.

Two people familiar with the matter earlier told Reuters that the majority of Siemens' 20-member supervisory board favored finance chief Joe Kaeser as replacement for Loescher. The company declined to comment.

There have been persistent rumors over the past year that Kaeser, who was already on Siemens' management board when Loescher joined in 2007, had his eye on Loescher's job, though the two have repeatedly said they worked well together.

Late last year, when questioned about the rumors, the CFO said the two complemented each other like "light and dark".

OVERPROMISED, UNDERDELIVERED

When Loescher became CEO six years ago as the first company outsider to take the helm at Siemens, he was presented as a hero who would lead Siemens out of a massive bribery scandal that had tarnished its image and its finances.

But after tackling that task, Loescher started losing credibility as he repeatedly misjudged demand development in its main markets.

A bellwether of Germany's economy whose products range from gas turbines to fast trains and hearing aids, Siemens is suffering from the stuttering global demand that saw German exports fall the most since late 2009 in May.

In addition, Siemens' earnings have been hit repeatedly by one-time charges related to project delays and other issues.

Loescher was forced to put on the back-burner a strategy to increase annual sales by about a third to 100 billion euros last year, announcing instead a plan to save 6 billion euros over two years to compete with rivals such as General Electric Co.

The plan, which unions fear could affect 10,000 jobs, was meant to boost Siemens' core operating profit margin to at least 12 percent from 9.5 percent by 2014.

On Thursday, the company scrapped that target, issuing a brief statement in which it cited lower expectations for how its markets would perform.

Siemens is scheduled to release third-quarter results on Thursday when analysts expect Loescher to elaborate on what prompted the company to scrap its margin target.

(Reporting by Jens Hack.; Writing by Maria Sheahan. Editing by Andreas Cremer and David Evans)

DealBook: Bank of England Official to Leave

Neil Hall/ReutersPaul Tucker, deputy governor of the Bank of England.

LONDON – The Bank of England said Friday that Paul Tucker would resign as deputy governor. The announcement comes two weeks before Mark Carney takes over as the governor of the central bank.

Mr. Tucker, who has spent 33 years at the Bank of England, was also a candidate for the top job at the central bank. Mr. Tucker said that he planned to stay through the summer to help Mr. Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, settle in to his new role.

“It has been an extraordinary honor to serve at the Bank of England over the past 30 years,” Mr. Tucker said in a statement. “I am very proud that, through the bank and the wider central banking community, I have been able to make a contribution to monetary and financial stability. I am looking forward to supporting Mark Carney as he arrives at the bank.”

Mr. Tucker had been a leading candidate to replace Mervyn A. King as governor of the Bank of England. But his chances dimmed after questions arose after an interest rate manipulation scandal erupted last summer.

British politicians accused Mr. Tucker and the central bank of failing to crack down on efforts by Barclays and other banks to manipulate the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, a benchmark for mortgages, corporate loans and other financial products worldwide. Mr. Tucker had to defend himself against assertions by former Barclays executives that the Bank of England had been aware of attempts to influence rates.

Mr. Tucker joined the Bank of England in 1980 after studying mathematics at Cambridge University. He became executive director for markets in 2002 and a member of the Bank of England’s rate setting committee. Earlier this year, he took a seat at the newly created Financial Policy Committee, which is part of Britain’s financial regulation system. At the central bank, he is known for improving communication with large financial organizations and keeping closer ties with chief risk officers.

“Paul has contributed immeasurably to a series of critical financial reforms, including policies to end too big to fail and to build more resilient derivative and funding markets,” said Mr. Carney, who is due to take the top job at the Bank of England on July 1. He added that he would like to continue a “close dialogue on how to build a more resilient financial system that more effectively serves the needs of the real economy.”

In a letter to Mr. Tucker published on the Bank of England’s Web site, George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, wrote that he was grateful to Mr. Tucker for his service and “a tremendous contribution to U.K. monetary and financial policy.”

“I have no doubt that you will continue to make a towering contribution to the international economic community,” Mr. Osborne wrote. “I hope that we stay in touch.”

Disruptions: Even the Tech Elites Leave Gadgets Behind

Nick Bilton/The New York Times The writer’s dinner guests place their smartphones in a stack in the middle of the table.

If you were to meet 32-year-old Robin Sloan of San Francisco, you might think him a Luddite unable to get his head around new technologies. He owns an old Nokia phone with one main application: making phone calls. He takes notes using a pen and paper notepad. And he reads books printed on paper.

But Mr. Sloan is far from a Luddite. He used to work at Twitter as a media manager, teaching news outlets to use the hottest social media tools. Before that he was with Current TV as an online strategist, inventing the future of digital journalism.

Yet last year, as he set out to write his first book, “Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore,” he found his iPhone and other technologies were getting in the way of his productivity, so he simply got rid of them. “I found it was more important and more productive for me to be daydreaming and jotting down notes,” he said. “I needed my idle minutes to contribute to the story I was doing, not checking my e-mail, or checking tweets.”

Even in Silicon Valley, Mr. Sloan has company.

As every aspect of our daily lives has become hyperconnected, some people on the cutting edge of tech are trying their best to push it back a few feet. Keeping their phone in their pocket. Turning off their home Wi-Fi at night or on weekends. And reading books on paper, rather than pixels.

I’ve experienced this, too.

Two years ago, when the iPhone and iPad were spiking in popularity, when I dined with other technology bloggers and reporters we enthusiastically passed our phones around the table, showing off the latest app or funny YouTube clip.

Now, even as our gadgets can hold more apps and stream faster videos, when I’m at dinner with technologists we play a new game. Attendees happily place their smartphones in a stack in the middle of the table, and the first person who touches his or her phone before the meal is over has to pay the bill.

Some couples who work in tech seem to be trying to step back the most.

“At least once a month my wife and I jump in our car and drive until cell service drops off (yes, this is possible) and spend the weekend engaged with all things analog,” Evan Sharp, a founder of Pinterest, said — on e-mail. “We read, we walk all over the California hills, we cook, we meet people who don’t work in technology.”

Other couples have told me of a “no gadgets in the bedroom” rule. (Kindles are sometimes an exception.) Some say they leave their phones at home when they go for Sunday brunch. Rather than take a picture of their bacon and eggs to post to Instagram, they can now enjoy each other’s company, and do that strange thing called talking.

There could even be a business model in products that encourage us to step away from our gadgets.

Last Tuesday, Penguin Press published “The Pocket Scavenger,” a book both physical and digital that encourages readers to go on an unusual scavenger hunt, collecting random objects, drawing and smudging on the book’s pages, then documenting them later with a smartphone.

“We’re not going to get rid of technology,” said Keri Smith, the author. “I feel like we’ve lost touch with noticing smells and tactile sensations, and I’d just like to offer some kind of antidote to what’s out there.”

As for Mr. Sloan, who has since published his book, he said his break from technology was a resounding success. He still checks his e-mail, but not while he’s getting coffee with someone or going for a stroll.

Although he isn’t rushing off to buy the next iPhone, he said he wouldn’t rule it out. But he would use such a device differently than he did before downgrading his cellphone.

“It sounds silly because we all used to do this all the time, but after getting rid of my smartphone I am now so much more comfortable just leaving the house without any phone at all,” he said. “I feel like I kind of learned how to do that again, and I would do the same thing if I had a fancy new smartphone too.”

E-mail: bilton@nytimes.com

Occidental Chairman Irani Agrees to Leave Company

The decision, announced at the company’s annual meeting, was the climax of a brutal boardroom struggle between Mr. Irani and Stephen I. Chazen, the chief executive during the last two years, over leadership and direction of the company. Earlier this week, the Occidental board bowed to investor pressure by announcing that Mr. Chazen would continue to serve in his position through the end of 2014 and help find a successor.

The company announced that Edward P. Djererjian, a former ambassador in the Middle East who has served as an independent director since 1996, will assume the role of independent chairman of the board, and that former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham will become the independent vice chairmen. Both were elected by the board.

Mr. Irani has been chairman of Occidental since 1990, and many observers of the company believed he had been maneuvering to remove Mr. Chazen and retake the post of chief executive. He did not attend the shareholder meeting, held in Santa Monica, Calif.

Mr. Irani, 78, took over the Los Angeles-based company from Armand Hammer and stretched its reach across the Middle East, including Iraq, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. But he angered many investors by rewarding himself and some of his most senior executives with pay packages that were outsize even by the generous standards of large oil companies. Shareholders forced him to step down as chief executive two years ago.

Mr. Irani will be eligible for a severance payment of $38 million, which includes a life insurance payout, and additional annual payments of more than $2 million.

In recent years, Mr. Chazen tried to turn the company’s focus toward domestic oil fields to take advantage of the shale oil boom, but the financial results of his approach did not satisfy Mr. Irani. Occidental’s stock price has lagged those of competitors.

The shareholders had voted against Mr. Irani’s retention as chairman by more than 3 to 1.

“This means Chazen is really in charge until his time is up next year,” said Philip H. Weiss, a senior energy analyst at Argus Research. “This ends the battle at the top and clears a path for new leadership.”

In another sign of change, Aziz D. Syriani, the lead independent director, submitted his resignation. Mr. Syriani is the chief executive of the Olayan Group, a global trading and investment company, who received stock and cash worth $879,000 last year as an Occidental board member.

The developments were welcomed by activist investors who wanted Mr. Irani to retire.

“I am happy and cautiously optimistic but the devil’s in the details,” said Steven Romick, a managing partner of First Pacific Advisors and overseer of the $11 billion FPA Crescent fund, who attended the annual meeting. He said he hoped the company would now restructure its compensation policies for the board and senior management, and he was open to the possibility that Mr. Chazen might stay in his position longer.

Mr. Chazen is 66, two years younger than the new retirement age set for the chief executive just this week by the board.

Mr. Romick added, drawing a clear distinction with Mr. Irani’s direction, “My preference would be to be very circumspect about the Middle East.”

In February, Occidental surprised investors when it announced that it was creating a search committee to replace Mr. Chazen as chief executive. Fear spread among some investors that Mr. Irani was trying to put off his retirement and even return to his old post as chief executive. That stirred a revolt by the California State Teachers’ Retirement System and other shareholder activists who came out in favor of Mr. Chazen. They were supported by many Wall Street analysts who have complained that the company under Mr. Irani was often secretive.

Mr. Chazen, who previously served as chief financial officer, won the support of many investors because he was viewed as a smart allocator of capital and efficient manager of new projects.

Institutional Shareholder Services, the influential proxy adviser, had recommended that shareholders refuse to re-elect Mr. Irani or Mr. Syriani.

Boom Times in Paraguay Leave Many Behind

But just a few minutes away by car one recent morning, grandmothers waded through raw sewage in the labyrinthine slum of La Chacarita, scavenging copper wire and aluminum cans to sell at scrap yards.

“Tell me about this growth,” said Cecilia Aguirre, 60, grasping a plastic bag holding her day’s takings, worth about $4. Squinting under the hot sun, she said she worked every day to feed the four grandchildren who live in her home. Asked about Paraguay’s robust economy, she added, “I’ve heard of no such thing in my lifetime.”

Indeed, Paraguay’s economic boom, fueled by bountiful harvests of export commodities like soybeans and corn, exists only in pockets. In parts of Asunción, showrooms are selling out of Porsches and Audis, and cranes are putting the finishing touches on luxury towers like the Ícono, a 37-story skyscraper of SoHo-inspired lofts.

Yet much of the country, which has long figured among South America’s poorest and most unequal nations, remains left behind. More than 30 percent of the population lives in poverty, according to the central bank, and Paraguay ranks near the bottom among South American countries in reducing poverty over the last decade, according to the United Nations.

Social spending for antipoverty projects is minimal, largely because taxation is lacking. Paraguay did not even have an income tax until this year, but even though the new across-the-board rate is low, at 10 percent, few people are expected to pay it, as exemptions and loopholes abound. The result: the economic boom may be accentuating the festering inequality in one of Latin America’s most politically unstable nations.

“Nearly all of the growth is driven by highly mechanized agriculture, which generates few jobs for the population,” said Andrew Dickson, an expert on Paraguay’s development policies at the University of Birmingham in Britain. “With a government that finances itself largely through value-added taxes and taxes on imports, you have a situation rather like a low-income African country.”

Paraguay is a landlocked nation about the size of California, sandwiched between southern Brazil and northern Argentina, with a population of 6.5 million. About 77 percent of its arable land is controlled by 1 percent of the nation’s landowners, according to the last agricultural census, and land disputes simmer in various parts of the country.

Activists claim that for decades large tracts of land were illegally distributed by corrupt officials, leaving many land titles in question. In one particularly bloody clash last June, 11 peasants and six police officers were killed at a soy estate in Curuguaty, in eastern Paraguay.

Legislators seized on that episode as a way to oust Fernando Lugo, the former Roman Catholic bishop who was elected president in 2008, ending six decades of one-party rule. Mr. Lugo had initially been expected to focus on reducing inequality, but faced obstacles in doing so.

Paraguay’s new president is one of the nation’s wealthiest men, the tobacco magnate Horacio Cartes, who was elected Sunday after promoting conservative, business-friendly policies during his campaign. He recognized poverty as an issue but has been vague about any plans for reducing it beyond trying to create more jobs through private investment.

The government’s economists remain bullish about growth, arguing that Paraguay, devastated by a 19th-century war that wiped out most of its male population and ruled throughout much of the 20th century by Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, one of the world’s longest-ruling dictators, is emerging from decades of ostracism in the global economy.

Paraguay sold $500 million of bonds in January in international markets, a rare source of financing for a nation overlooked by many foreign bankers for decades. Inflation and unemployment remain low, at less than 2 percent and less than 6 percent, respectively, and the overall poverty rate has fallen to about 32 percent in 2011 from 44 percent in 2003, said Roland Horst, a board member at the central bank.

“We do have a peasant issue now and then,” Mr. Horst said in an interview. “But there is less tension than 10 years ago.” He said the government had been trying to reduce poverty, noting that a program of giving small cash stipends to people in extreme poverty, begun in 2005, now included more than 75,000 families. Other economists, however, dispute such sunny assessments, arguing that the economy remains subject to wide swings, surging this year thanks in part to favorable weather conditions for certain crops, after contracting slightly in 2012 when farmers struggled with a drought.

They also contend that Paraguay’s social welfare programs remain meager compared with antipoverty projects in neighboring countries, which have lifted tens of millions of people out of abject living conditions. They blame Paraguay’s relatively weak state, with tax collection corresponding to only about 18 percent of gross domestic product, a figure lower than that of African nations like Congo and Chad.

“The statistics showing historically low unemployment are a farce,” said Luis Rojas Villagra, an economist at the National University, who estimates that as much as half of Paraguay’s work force is unemployed or underemployed in jobs with degrading wages and working conditions.

“How is it possible to reconcile the fact that hundreds of people survive each day by sifting through garbage in the municipal dump of Asunción while Paraguayans are also the biggest per-capita spenders in Punta del Este?” said Mr. Rojas Villagra, referring to the Uruguayan resort city where rich Paraguayans vacation alongside moneyed Argentines and Brazilians.

Such contrasts persist across Paraguay’s economy. Pockets of luxury, for instance, are expanding near Ciudad del Este, the city on the Brazilian border renowned as a smuggler’s haven.

One development, the Paraná Country Club, includes mansions selling for more than $3 million, largely to soybean growers or business executives from Brazil who have opened factories in Paraguay, a migration of manufacturing that is starting to resemble that of companies from the United States opening factories in low-wage Mexican border cities.

“2013 is starting to look like an amazing year,” said Thelma Amaral, an architect who designs homes near Ciudad del Este.

But elsewhere, including the soybean regions at the root of the growth, examples abound of disparities and disputes, largely over land. A small leftist rebel group, the Paraguayan People’s Army, has been picking off security forces in remote areas. Last weekend, the group killed at least one police officer and wounded several others.

In December, gunmen shot dead Vidal Vega, a leader of the peasant movement involved in the deadly clash at Curuguaty. He had been expected to be a witness at the criminal trial intended to shed light on the massacre. The inquiry into his killing, as in similar cases of peasant leaders killed in Paraguay in recent years, has turned up few leads.

Times Reporter in China Is Forced to Leave Over Visa Issue

Chris Buckley, a 45-year-old Australian who has worked as a correspondent in China since 2000, rejoined The Times in September after working for Reuters. The Times applied for Mr. Buckley to be accredited to replace a correspondent who was reassigned, but the authorities did not act before Dec. 31, despite numerous requests. That forced Mr. Buckley, his partner and their daughter to fly to Hong Kong on Monday.

Normally, requests to transfer visas are processed in a matter of weeks or a couple of months.

The Times is also waiting for its new Beijing bureau chief, Philip P. Pan, to be accredited. Mr. Pan applied in March, but his visa has not been processed.

The visa troubles come amid government pressure on the foreign news media over investigations into the finances of senior Chinese leaders, a delicate subject. Corruption is widely reported in China, but top leaders are considered off limits.

On the day that The Times published a long investigation into the riches of the family of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, both its English-language Web site and its new Chinese-language site were blocked within China, and they remain so.

In June, the authorities blocked the English-language site of Bloomberg News after it published a detailed investigation into the family riches of China’s new top leader, Xi Jinping. Chinese financial institutions say they have been instructed by officials not to buy Bloomberg’s computer terminals, a lucrative source of income for the company.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment on Mr. Buckley’s forced departure. Ministry officials have not said if they are linking Mr. Buckley’s visa renewal or Mr. Pan’s press accreditation to the newspaper’s coverage of China. In a statement, The Times urged the authorities to process Mr. Buckley’s visa as quickly as possible so that he and his family could return to Beijing.

“I hope the Chinese authorities will issue him a new visa as soon as possible and allow Chris and his family to return to Beijing,” Jill Abramson, the executive editor of The Times, said in the statement. “I also hope that Phil Pan, whose application for journalist credentials has been pending for months, will also be issued a visa to serve as our bureau chief in Beijing.”

The Times has six other accredited correspondents in China, and their visas were renewed for 2013 in a timely manner. David Barboza, the Shanghai bureau chief, who wrote the articles about Mr. Wen’s family, was among those whose visas were renewed.

Media Decoder Blog: Irving Azoff to Leave Live Nation

Irving Azoff, the executive chairman of Live Nation Entertainment, the concert and ticketing giant, is leaving the company, Live Nation announced on Monday.

As part of his exit, Liberty Media, already one of Live Nation’s largest shareholders, will buy 1.7 million of Mr. Azoff’s shares, giving Liberty a 26.4 percent stake in Live Nation. According to recently filed corporate disclosure documents, Mr. Azoff controlled about 2.6 million shares in Live Nation, either directly or through a family trust.

Mr. Azoff, 65, has been one of the most powerful executives and artist managers in music for four decades, and Live Nation has been only his most recent endeavor. Along with Michael Rapino, who remains the company’s chief executive, Mr. Azoff helped organize the merger in early 2010 of Live Nation — then largely a concert promotions company — and Ticketmaster, which also included Mr. Azoff’s Front Line management business.

Live Nation will continue to own Front Line, but Mr. Azoff will take some of his longtime management clients with him, including the Eagles, Christina Aguilera, Van Halen and Steely Dan. Mr. Azoff said that leaving would relieve him of what he described as burdensome corporate duties, and let him work again in his preferred mode as an entrepreneur.

“It’s no secret that I haven’t been a fan of public companies for some time,” Mr. Azoff said by phone from Mexico, where he was spending the holidays. “I looked at my calendar for the beginning of next year and I was able to clear 90 days for things that went into dealing with a public company, which I can now devote to productive work.”

He cited “taxes and estate planning” as the reasons for leaving on the last day of the year.

Mr. Azoff will join the board of Starz, the cable television company also owned by Liberty Media. Mr. Azoff also serves on the boards of Clear Channel Communications and the media and entertainment company IMG.

Live Nation announced Mr. Azoff’s departure after the market closed on Monday, but news of it was first reported by Bloomberg News before the end of the trading day. Live Nation’s stock closed at $9.31, up about 3.7 percent for the day.

Live Nation did not announce who would be taking over as chairman in Mr. Azoff’s absence.

In addition to its holdings in Live Nation, Liberty has a major stake in Sirius XM Radio, and has spent the last several months in the process of taking that company over. But when asked whether he might take over from the recently departed Mel Karmazin as chief executive of Sirius, Mr. Azoff scoffed.

“I’m never going to work for a public company again,” he said. “Any public company.”

DealBook: 2 More Officials Plan to Leave the S.E.C.

Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesRobert W. Cook, the S.E.C.’s director of trading and markets, at a Senate panel earlier this year.

The exodus at the Securities and Exchange Commission is continuing.

Two top S.E.C. officials — Mark D. Cahn, the general counsel, and Robert W. Cook, the director of trading and markets — plan to leave, the agency said on Wednesday. The two join Meredith Cross, the S.E.C’s director of corporate finance, whose departure was announced on Tuesday.

The departures come after Mary L. Schapiro announced her resignation as chairwoman last week, after four years leading the agency. Elisse B. Walter, a Democratic commissioner at the agency, will take the reins, but her successor is expected to be named in the near future.

Under Mr. Cahn’s watch, the S.E.C. developed a program to reward whistle-blowers who provided useful information. Mr. Cahn, who has served in his position since February 2011, also advised on the rules that the agency had to write under the Dodd-Frank Act. He plans to leave at the end of the year and return to the private sector.

Mr. Cook, who has been the director of trading and markets since January 2010, oversaw the new rules for Wall Street stemming from Dodd-Frank and the JOBS Act. He also directed the agency’s response to the “flash crash” of May 6, 2010, leading an effort to strengthen circuit breakers and other controls.

“Robert provided extraordinary counsel and worked tirelessly as we put in place measures that have helped to bolster our markets,” Ms. Schapiro said in a statement.

Additional departures may follow after a new leader is named. Robert Khuzami, the S.E.C. enforcement director, is considered a long-shot contender to take over from Ms. Walter as chairman. Some agency officials expect him to leave if he is not named to the top post, according to people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The personnel changes come as the agency has regained some of its footing since the financial crisis, but is still enmeshed in its share of battles. While the S.E.C. has claimed some significant enforcement victories over the last few years, it is still criticized by consumer advocates as not being tough enough on Wall Street.

It also has plenty of work to do, as it completes new regulations and considers fresh challenges, like how to police the high-speed trading that dominates the stock market.

“It has been a unique privilege to have worked at the commission during such an extraordinary period of change in the financial and regulatory arena,” Mr. Cahn, the general counsel, said in a statement.

Ben Protess contributed reporting.