The 2008/2009 global crisis highlighted the vulnerabilities and inter-dependencies in the financial system including the global over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives markets, where significant counterparty credit risk prevails. In this paper, we deal with risk under Basel III banking regulation and...

Today’s regulatory rules, especially the easily-manipulated measures of regulatory capital, have led to costly bank failures. We design a robust regulatory system such that (i) bank losses are credibly borne by the private sector (ii) systemically important institutions cannot collapse...

We propose a new form of hybrid capital for banks, Equity Recourse Notes (ERNs), which ameliorate booms and busts by creating counter-cyclical incentives for banks to raise capital, and so encourage bank lending in bad times. They avoid the flaws of existing contingent convertible bonds...

We analyze securities trading by banks and the associated spillovers to the supply of credit. Empirical analysis has been elusive due to the lack of securities register for banks. We use a unique, proprietary dataset that has the investments of banks at the security level for 2005-2012 in...

This note critically assesses the Basel reform process of capital regulation. It highlights the political nature of this process and argues that the absence of clearly spelled-out societal objectives has been detrimental in furthering stability and soundness of the banking systems in the run-up...

We analyze asset-backed commercial paper conduits, which experienced a shadow-banking "run" and played a central role in the early phase of the financial crisis of 2007-09. We document that commercial banks set up conduits to securitize assets worth $1.3 trillion while insuring the newly...