The findings add support to my proposal to ban banks from all secondary markets
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Staff Reports
The Shadow Banking System:
Implications for Financial Regulation
Tobias Adrian
Hyun Song Shin
Staff Report no. 382
July 2009
This paper presents preliminary findings and is being distributed to economists and other interested readers solely to stimulate discussion and elicit comments. The views expressed in the paper are those of the authors and are not necessarily reflective of views at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the authors.
The Shadow Banking System: Implications for Financial Regulation
Tobias Adrian and Hyun Song Shin
Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports, no. 382
July 2009
JEL classification: G28, G18, K20
Abstract
The current financial crisis has highlighted the growing importance of the “shadow banking system,†which grew out of the securitization of assets and the integration of banking with capital market developments. This trend has been most pronounced in the United States, but it has had a profound influence on the global financial system. In a market-based financial system, banking and capital market developments are inseparable: Funding conditions are closely tied to fluctuations in the leverage of market-based financial intermediaries. Growth in the balance sheets of these intermediaries provides a sense of the availability of credit, while contractions of their balance sheets have tended to precede the onset of financial crises. Securitization was intended as a way to transfer credit risk to those better able to absorb losses, but instead it increased the fragility of the entire financial system by allowing banks and other intermediaries to “leverage up†by buying one another’s securities. In the new, post-crisis financial system, the role of securitization will likely be held in check by more stringent financial regulation and by the recognition that it is important to prevent excessive leverage and maturity mismatch, both of which can undermine financial stability.
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