How does asset encumbrance affect the fragility of intermediaries subject to rollover risk? We offer a model in which a bank issues covered bonds backed by a pool of assets that is bankruptcy remote and replenished following losses. Encumbering assets allows a bank to raise cheap secured debt...

We propose a model of asset encumbrance by banks subject to rollover risk and study the consequences for fragility, funding costs, and prudential regulation. A bank's choice of encumbrance trades off the benefit of expanding profitable investment funded by cheap long-term secured debt against...

We examine the financial stability implications of covered bonds. Banks issue covered bonds by encumbering assets on their balance sheet and placing them within a dynamic ring fence. As more assets are encumbered, jittery unsecured creditors may run, leading to a banking crisis. We provide...

The breakdown of short-term funding markets was a key feature of the global financial crisis of 2007/8. Combining insights from the literature on global games and network growth, we develop a simple model that sheds light on how network topology interacts with the funding structure of financial...

We examine the role of macroeconomic fluctuations, asset market liquidity, and network structure in determining contagion and aggregate losses in a financial system. Systemic instability is explored in a financial network comprising three distinct, but interconnected, sets of agents - domestic...

We develop an operational model of information contagion and show how it may be integrated into a mainstream, top-down, stress-testing framework to quantify systemic risk. The key transmission mechanism is a two-way interaction between the beliefs of secondary market investors and the...