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Organization and Business	12 Months Ended
Organization and Business	Dec. 31, 2018
Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]
Organization and Business	Organization and Business Cowen Inc., a Delaware corporation formed in 2009, is a diversified financial services firm which, together with its consolidated subsidiaries (collectively, “Cowen,” or the “Company”), operates through its two business segments: an investment management segment and an investment bank segment. The Company's investment management business includes advisers to investment funds (including privately placed hedge funds, real estate funds and private equity structures), managed accounts, commodity pools, and registered funds. The Company's investment bank segment offers investment banking, research, sales and trading, prime brokerage, global clearing and commission management services to companies and primarily institutional investor clients. The investment bank segment's primary target sectors ("Target Sectors") are healthcare, technology, media and telecommunications, information and technology services, consumer, aerospace and defense, industrials, energy and transportation.