This paper examines the impact of central clearing on the credit default swap (CDS) market using a sample of voluntarily cleared single-name contracts. Consistent with central clearing reducing counterparty risk, CDS spreads increase around the commencement of central clearing and are lower than...

This article analyzes the impact of credit risk transfer on banks' screening incentives on the primary loan market. While credit derivatives allow banks to transfer risk to investors, they negatively affect the incentive to screen due to the asymmetry of information between banks and investors....

The collapse of the subprime markets in 2008 triggered one of the most destructive financial crisis since the stock market crash of 1929. Criticized from the beginning of the crisis, OTC derivatives markets stand out by their opacity and the lack of national and international supervision. In...

Has economic research been helpful in dealing with the financial crises of the early 2000s? On the whole, the answer is negative, although there are bright spots. Economists have largely failed to predict both crises, largely because most of them were not analytically equipped to understand...

Banks create excessive systemic risk through leverage and maturity mismatch, as financial constraints introduce welfare-reducing pecuniary externalities.  Macroprudential regulators can achieve efficiency with simple linear constraints on banks' balance sheets, which require less information...

In this paper we study systemic risk for the US and Europe. We show that banks' exposures to common risk factors are crucial for systemic risk. We come to this conclusion by first showing that relations between US and European banks are smaller than within each region. We then show that European...

In this paper we study systemic risk for North America and Europe. We show that banks' exposures to common risk factors are crucial for systemic risk. We come to this conclusion by first showing that relations between North American and European banks are smaller than within each region. We then...

Has economic research been helpful in dealing with the financial crises of the early 2000s? On the whole, the answer is negative, although there are bright spots. Economists have largely failed to predict both crises, largely because most of them were not analytically equipped to understand...

We propose a simple network–based methodology for ranking systemically important financial institutions. We view the risks of firms –including both the financial sector and the real economy– as a network with nodes representing the volatility shocks. The metric for the connections of the...

By introducing a structure of the balance sheets of the banks, which takes into account their bilateral exposures in terms of stocks or lendings, we get a structural model for default analysis. This model allows us to distinguish the exogenous and endogenous default dependence. We prove the...