The authors review the state of the debate on hedge funds and the potential threat that hedge funds pose to financial stability. The collapse of a hedge fund or a group of hedge funds might pose a systemic risk directly by damaging systematically important financial institutions, or indirectly...

The Basel capital framework plays an important role in risk management by linking a bank's minimum capital requirements to the riskiness of its assets. Nevertheless, the risk estimates underlying these calculations may be imperfect, and it appears that a cyclical bias in measures of...

The author reviews the theoretical and empirical literature to examine the traditional perception that the following trade-off exists between economic efficiency and stability in the banking system: a competitive banking system is more efficient and therefore important to growth, but market...

The author develops a dynamic model of banking competition to determine which capital instrument is most effective in disciplining banks' risk choice. Comparisons are conducted between equity, subordinated debentures (SD), and uninsured deposits (UD) as funding sources. The model, adapted from...

The author documents the use by Canadian banks of subordinated debt (SD) as a capital instrument. He reviews the economic benefits of this asset as a mechanism for market discipline and highlights academic and policy research over the past 20 years. The author provides both qualitative and...

The four essays published here provide a useful overview for anyone interested in understanding the issues and policy environment surrounding financial system stability. The first three essays consider different aspects of the question, What is financial stability/instability? The first essay,...

Many countries prohibit large shareholdings in their domestic banks. The authors examine whether such a restriction restrains competition in a duopolistic loan market. Blockholders may influence managers' output decisions by choosing capital structure, as in Brander and Lewis (1986). For the...

The authors conduct a counterfactual simulation of the proposed rules under the new Basel Capital Accord (Basel II), including the revised treatment of expected and unexpected credit losses proposed by the Basel Committee in October 2003. When the authors apply the simulation to Canadian banking...