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Discussion Paper
Which Dealers Borrowed from the Fed’s Lender-of-Last-Resort Facilities?
During the 2007-08 financial crisis, the Fed established lending facilities designed to improve market functioning by providing liquidity to nondepository financial institutions—the first lending targeted to this group since the 1930s. What was the financial condition of the dealers that borrowed from these facilities? Were they healthy institutions behaving opportunistically or were they genuinely distressed? In published research, we find that dealers in a weaker financial condition were more likely to participate than healthier ones and tended to borrow more. Our findings reinforce the ...
Report
Insolvency after the 2005 bankruptcy reform
Using a comprehensive panel dataset on U.S. households, we study the effects of the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), the most substantive reform of personal bankruptcy in the United States since the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978. The 2005 legislation introduced a means test based on income to establish eligibility for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and increased the administrative requirements to file, leading to a rise in the opportunity cost and, especially, the financial cost of filing for bankruptcy. We study the effects of the reform on bankruptcy, insolvency, ...
Report
Dealer financial conditions and lender-of-last resort facilities
We examine the financial conditions of dealers that participated in two of the Federal Reserve?s lender-of-last-resort (LOLR) facilities--the Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) and the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF)--that provided liquidity against a range of assets during 2008-09. Dealers with lower equity returns and greater leverage prior to borrowing from the facilities were more likely to participate in the programs, borrow more, and--in the case of the TSLF--at higher bidding rates. Dealers with less liquid collateral on their balance sheets before the facilities were ...