Search Results
Working Paper
Too-Big-to-Fail before the Fed
?Too-big-to-fail? is consistent with policies followed by private bank clearing houses during financial crises in the U.S. National Banking Era prior to the existence of the Federal Reserve System. Private bank clearing houses provided emergency lending to member banks during financial crises. This behavior strongly suggests that ?too-big-to-fail? is not the problem causing modern crises. Rather, it is a reasonable response to the threat posed to large banks by the vulnerability of short-term debt to runs.
Journal Article
The Goldilocks Problem: How to get Incentives and Default Waterfalls “Just Right”
Regulatory reforms in the wake of the 2007?08 financial crisis have increased the focus on the systemic importance of central counterparties (CCPs), which guarantee the performance of their clearing members? financial contracts.1 This, in turn, has increased policymakers? and practitioners? focus on risk management at CCPs. A key component of any CCP?s risk-management strategy is the CCP?s default waterfall. The default waterfall stipulates the sequence of financial resources that a CCP can draw upon to cover the unsatisfied financial obligations of a defaulted clearing member. At the top of ...
Journal Article
Can Broader Access to Direct CCP Clearing Reduce the Concentration of Cleared Derivatives?
In November 2008, at the height of the global financial crisis, leaders from the Group of Twenty (G20) nations, representing the world’s largest economies, convened in Washington, DC, to develop a new regulatory framework to help foster financial stability. They came out of that Washington summit with several noteworthy ideas.1 One was to strengthen over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives markets, where defaults had been serious problems during the financial crisis. In particular, G20 leaders agreed to move more of this business onto regulated exchanges and central counterparties (CCPs) as a way ...
Working Paper
How Did Pre-Fed Banking Panics End?
How did pre-Fed banking crises end? How did depositors? beliefs change? During the National Banking Era, 1863-1914, banks responded to the severe panics by suspending convertibility; that is, they refused to exchange cash for their liabilities (checking accounts). At the start of the suspension period, the private clearing houses cut off bank-specific information. Member banks were legally united into a single entity by the issuance of emergency loan certificates, a joint liability. A new market for certified checks opened, pricing the risk of clearing house failure. Certified checks traded ...
Speech
Opening Remarks: Public Policy Symposium on OTC Derviatives Clearing
A speech delivered by Charles Evans before the Public Policy Symposium on OTC Derivative Clearing on September 3, 2010, in Chicago, IL.
Working Paper
The Concentration of Cleared Derivatives: Can Access to Direct CCP Clearing for End-Users Address the Challenge?
Cleared derivatives contracts are now concentrated among a small and dwindling number of institutions. Many policymakers and regulators have argued that this concentration has adverse consequences, some of which may have systemic risk implications. The authors explore the benefits and challenges of encouraging major end-users of derivatives to become direct clearing members of central counterparties (CCPs). If done prudently, increasing and diversifying the pool of clearing members and redistributing outstanding derivatives contracts across them may help CCPs become more resilient.
Newsletter
Taking a Deep Dive into Margins for Cleared Derivatives
Central counterparties (CCPs) are institutions that become the buyer to every seller and seller to every buyer in cleared markets. By design, CCPs have a matched book of positions. As a result, their liabilities to clearing members with winning positions are exactly matched by incoming payments from those on the losing side of positions.