This paper describes a set of indicators of systemic risk computed from current market prices of equity and equity index options. It displays results from a prototype version, computed daily from January 2006 to January 2013. The indicators represent a systemic risk event as the realization of...

This paper studies the risk of "fire sales" in the tri-party repo market, a large and important market where securities dealers find short-term funding for a substantial portion of their own and their clients' assets. We distinguish between fire sales of assets by a dealer who, facing a run that...

This paper introduces a proposal for money market fund (MMF) reform that could mitigate systemic risks arising from these funds by protecting shareholders, such as retail investors, who do not redeem quickly from distressed funds. Our proposal would require that a small fraction of each MMF...

We provide a framework for monitoring the shadow banking system. The shadow banking system consists of a web of specialized financial institutions that conduct credit, maturity, and liquidity transformation without direct, explicit access to public backstops. The lack of such access to sources...

Financial crises are associated with reduced volumes and extreme levels of rates for term inter-bank loans, reflected in the one-month and three-month Libor. We explain such stress by modeling leveraged banks' precautionary demand for liquidity. Asset shocks impair a bank's ability to roll over...

Why does the market discipline that banks face seem too weak during good times and too strong during bad times? Using a global games approach in a general equilibrium setting, this paper shows that rollover risk as a disciplining device is effective only if all banks face purely idiosyncratic...

While the balance sheet structure of U.S. banks influences how they respond to liquidity risks, the mechanisms for the effects on and consequences for lending vary widely across banks. We demonstrate fundamental differences across banks without foreign affiliates versus those with foreign...

Activities of international banks have been at the core of discussions on the causes and effects of the international financial crisis. Yet we know little about the actual magnitudes and mechanisms for transmission of liquidity shocks through international banks, including the reasons for...

This paper investigates the incentives for banks to bias their internally generated risk estimates. We are able to estimate bank biases at the credit level by comparing bank-generated risk estimates within loan syndicates. The biases are positively correlated with measures of regulatory capital,...

I develop a framework of the buildup and outbreak of financial crises in an asymmetric information setting. In equilibrium, two distinct economic states arise endogenously: “normal times,” periods of modest investment, and “booms,” periods of expansionary investment. Normal times occur...