The paper analyzes the use of credit default swaps (CDS) for regulatory capital relief and its consequences for systemic risk. Equity capital acts as a buffer against losses, and reduces incentives for excessive risk taking. Basel capital regulation states that banks can lower capital...

CoVaR seeks to use joint return data to measure a firm's contribution to systemic risk. To learn what comprehensive regulatory changes can do to systemic risk in general, and CoVaR in particular, this paper uses difference-in-difference to estimate the impact of the extensive and coincident U.S....

In September 2009, G20 paved the way for the mandatory central clearing of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives, which came into effect in December 2012. This new regulation involves a central clearing counterparty (CCP): a financial institution acting as an intermediary between buyers and sellers...

Several commentators have argued that financial “reform” legislation enacted after a market crash is invariably flawed, results in “quack corporate governance” and “bubble laws,” and should be discouraged. This criticism has been specifically directed at both the Sarbanes-Oxley Act...

Policymakers justify bailing out major financial firms by saying those firms are 'too big to fail.' They argue that such failure would subject the market to 'counterparty contagion' as the failed firms default on their obligations to other firms. But empirical evidence indicates that...

This study identifies and quantifies the contribution of the listed financial institutions to systemic risk in the UK. A financial network is constructed based on conditional Value at Risk (CoVar), to show the interdependence between the financial institutions' tail risk. The spillover effects...

The clearing of over-the-counter transactions through central counterparties (CCPs), one of the pillars of financial reform following the crisis of 2007-2008, has promoted CCPs as key elements of the new global financial architecture. Given the cost of implementing central clearing mandates and...

Theory suggests that government aid to banks may either reduce or increase systemic risk. We are the first to address this issue empirically, analyzing the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). Analysis suggests that TARP significantly reduced contributions to systemic risk, particularly for...

We identify and track over time the factors that make the financial system vulnerable to fire sales by constructing an index of aggregate vulnerability. The index starts increasing quickly in 2004, before most other major systemic risk measures, and triples by 2008. The fire-sale-specific...

We find that the level of bank herding in real estate loans during boom period is substantially higher than the level of bank herding in commercial and industrial loans or consumer loans. More importantly, we find that bank herding significantly increases systemic risk. In particular, herding in...