Staff Discussion Notes showcase the latest policy-related analysis and research being developed by individual IMF staff and are published to elicit comment and to further debate. These papers are generally brief and written in nontechnical language, and so are aimed at a broad audience...

The recent financial crisis highlighted that balance sheet exposures can be a major shock transmission channel. Using sectoral accounts data in combination with data from the Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey, International Investment Position, and BIS this paper estimates bilateral...

This paper questions the view that leverage should have forewarned us of the global financial crisis of 2007-09, pointing to several gearing indicators that were neither useful portents of the onset of the crisis nor of its ferocity. Instead it shows, first, that the use of ill-suited collateral...

Given the rapid evolution of the U.S. financial sector and attendant regulatory challenges, this paper explores ways to fine-tune U.S. oversight arrangements. It surveys the financial landscape, separating a highly regulated, multi-business, and (in terms of relative asset holdings) shrinking...

This paper builds on a Technical Note produced as part of the IMF’s 2010 Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) review of the United States. It addresses enterprise-wide oversight of financial groups, a key tool to mitigate systemic risk. Focusing on legal arrangements, it recommends...