How Big Banks Fail And What To Do About It

A leading finance expert explains how and why big banks fail—and what can be done to prevent it Dealer banks—that is, large banks that deal in securities and derivatives, such as J. P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs—are of a size and complexity that sharply distinguish them from typical commercial banks. When they fail, as we saw in the global financial crisis, they pose significant risks to our financial system and the world economy. How Big Banks Fail and What to Do about It examines how these banks collapse and how we can prevent the need to bail them out. In sharp, clinical detail, Darrell Duffie walks readers step-by-step through the mechanics of large-bank failures. He identifies where the cracks first appear when a dealer bank is weakened by severe trading losses, and demonstrates how the bank's relationships with its customers and business partners abruptly change when its solvency is threatened. As others seek to reduce their exposure to the dealer bank, the bank is forced to signal its strength by using up its slim stock of remaining liquid capital. Duffie shows how the key mechanisms in a dealer bank's collapse—such as Lehman Brothers' failure in 2008—derive from special institutional frameworks and regulations that influence the flight of short-term secured creditors, hedge-fund clients, derivatives counterparties, and most devastatingly, the loss of clearing and settlement services. How Big Banks Fail and What to Do about It reveals why today's regulatory and institutional frameworks for mitigating large-bank failures don't address the special risks to our financial system that are posed by dealer banks, and outlines the improvements in regulations and market institutions that are needed to address these systemic risks.

The potential failure of a large bank presents vexing questions for policymakers. It poses significant risks to other financial institutions, to the financial system as a whole, and possibly to the economic and social order. Because of such fears, policymakers in many countries—developed and less developed, democratic and autocratic—respond by protecting bank creditors from all or some of the losses they otherwise would face. Failing banks are labeled "too big to fail" (or TBTF). This important new book examines the issues surrounding TBTF, explaining why it is a problem and discussing ways of dealing with it more effectively. Gary Stern and Ron Feldman, officers with the Federal Reserve, warn that not enough has been done to reduce creditors' expectations of TBTF protection. Many of the existing pledges and policies meant to convince creditors that they will bear market losses when large banks fail are not credible, resulting in significant net costs to the economy. The authors recommend that policymakers enact a series of reforms to reduce expectations of bailouts when large banks fail.

An award-winning journalist best known for her coverage of the failure of Washington Mutual offers insight into the failings at the root of the recession, exploring how the bank was rendered vulnerable by destructive financial instruments and the well-intentioned practices of executives, customers, shareholders and regulators.

Bank failures, like illness and taxes, are almost a certainty at some time in the future. What is less certain is their cost to and adverse implications for macroeconomies. Past failures have frequently been resolved at very high cost to society. However, the cost could be reduced through having a well-developed, credible and widely publicized plan ready to put into action by policymakers. If no such plan is ready when a large bank approaches insolvency, political pressures are likely to influence the response of regulators.Minimizing immediate, short-run costs are likely to outweigh minimizing further out, longer-run and longer-lasting costs, even if these delayed costs promise to be substantially greater. Stated differently, today will win out over tomorrow and politics will trump economics. How best to prevent such unfavorable outcomes is the major theme of this volume. The articles presented review past insolvency resolutions, draw lessons from these resolutions, discuss impediments to efficient resolutions ? including cross-country, cross-regulator, and institutional challenges ? and recommend how to move forward.

No institution, government, or country is “too big to fail.” A behind-the-scenes account of what led to the 2008 crisis—and may soon lead to a bigger one. Written by two bank executives with firsthand experience of several financial crises, Nothing is Too Big to Fail holds a stiff warning about the future of finance and social justice—revealing how the US government’s fiscal and monetary policies are creating asset and debt bubbles that could burst at any time. The COVID-19 pandemic is just one of many risks that could derail our highly leveraged and fragile economic system. The authors also tell how government actions and an unregulated shadow banking system are leading to inequitable distribution of wealth, destroying the middle class, reducing trust in government, and accelerating racial injustice. No institution, government, or country is “too big to fail.” This book offers lessons learned from past crises and recommended actions for business and government leaders to take today to return our economic system and our democracy to a safer trajectory.

Why stable banking systems are so rare Why are banking systems unstable in so many countries—but not in others? The United States has had twelve systemic banking crises since 1840, while Canada has had none. The banking systems of Mexico and Brazil have not only been crisis prone but have provided miniscule amounts of credit to business enterprises and households. Analyzing the political and banking history of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil through several centuries, Fragile by Design demonstrates that chronic banking crises and scarce credit are not accidents. Calomiris and Haber combine political history and economics to examine how coalitions of politicians, bankers, and other interest groups form, why they endure, and how they generate policies that determine who gets to be a banker, who has access to credit, and who pays for bank bailouts and rescues. Fragile by Design is a revealing exploration of the ways that politics inevitably intrudes into bank regulation.