Law Commons^™

How Deregulating Derivatives Led To Disaster, And Why Re-Regulating Them Can Prevent Another, Lynn A. Stout

Lynn A. Stout

When credit markets froze up in the fall of 2008, many economists pronounced the crisis both inexplicable and unforeseeable. That’s because they were economists, not lawyers. Lawyers who specialize in financial regulation, and especially the small cadre who specialize in derivatives regulation, understood what went wrong. (Some even predicted it.) That’s because the roots of the catastrophe lay not in changes in the markets, but changes in the law. Perhaps the most important of those changes was the U.S. Congress’s decision to deregulate financial derivatives with the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA) of 2000. Prior to 2000, off-exchange derivatives contracts …

Derivatives And The Legal Origin Of The 2008 Credit Crisis, Lynn A. Stout

Lynn A. Stout

Experts still debate what caused the credit crisis of 2008. This Article argues that dubious honor belongs, first and foremost, to a little-known statute called the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA). Put simply, the credit crisis was not primarily due to changes in the markets; it was due to changes in the law. In particular, the crisis was the direct and foreseeable (and in fact foreseen by the author and others) consequence of the CFMA’s sudden and wholesale removal of centuries-old legal constraints on speculative trading in over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives. Derivative contracts are probabilistic bets on future events. …

Regulate Otc Derivatives By Deregulating Them, Lynn A. Stout

Lynn A. Stout

When credit markets froze up in the fall of 2008, many economists pronounced the crisis inexplicable and unforeseeable. Lawyers who specialize in financial regulation, and especially the small cadre who specialize in derivatives regulation, knew better.That's because the roots of the catastrophe lay not in changes in the markets, but changes in the law. In particular, the credit crisis can be traced to Congress's 2000 passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which radically altered the traditional legal approach to financial derivatives. This shift in the legal treatment of financial derivatives has brought the banking system to its knees. The …

Betting The Bank: How Derivatives Trading Under Conditions Of Uncertainty Can Increase Risks And Erode Returns In Financial Markets, Lynn A. Stout

Lynn A. Stout

On April 12, 1994, Procter & Gamble Co. announced that it had incurred pre-tax losses of $157 million from trading in leveraged interest rate swaps, a form of financial derivative. At the time that figure seemed enormous. Yet within a year, Procter & Gamble's misfortune had been overshadowed by that of Orange County, a wealthy California enclave that lost an estimated $2.5 billion of its investment fund as a result of dealings in reverse-repurchase agreements, inverse floaters, and other arcane instruments. Recent months have seen further losses by investment funds, government entities, and even colleges and Native American tribes. Perhaps …

Regulate Otc Derivatives By Deregulating Them: Response To Comments, Lynn A. Stout

Lynn A. Stout

Response to comments by Jean Helwege, Peter Wallison, and Craig Pirrong on the author's article, "Regulate OTC Derivatives By Deregulating Them." Article predates the author's affiliation with Cornell Law School.

Derivatives And The Legal Origin Of The 2008 Credit Crisis, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Experts still debate what caused the credit crisis of 2008. This Article argues that dubious honor belongs, first and foremost, to a little-known statute called the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA). Put simply, the credit crisis was not primarily due to changes in the markets; it was due to changes in the law. In particular, the crisis was the direct and foreseeable (and in fact foreseen by the author and others) consequence of the CFMA’s sudden and wholesale removal of centuries-old legal constraints on speculative trading in over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives.

Derivative contracts are probabilistic bets on future events. …

Credit Derivatives, Leverage, And Financial Regulation's Missing Macroeconomic Dimension, Erik F. Gerding

Publications

Of all OTC derivatives, credit derivatives pose particular concerns because of their ability to generate leverage that can increase liquidity - or the effective money supply - throughout the financial system. Credit derivatives and the leverage they create thus do much more than increase the fragility of financial institutions and increase counterparty risk. By increasing leverage and liquidity, credit derivatives can fuel rises in asset prices and even asset price bubbles. Rising asset prices can then mask mistakes in the pricing of credit derivatives and in assessments of overall leverage in the financial system. Furthermore, the use of credit derivatives …

Regulate Otc Derivatives By Deregulating Them, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

When credit markets froze up in the fall of 2008, many economists pronounced the crisis inexplicable and unforeseeable. Lawyers who specialize in financial regulation, and especially the small cadre who specialize in derivatives regulation, knew better.That's because the roots of the catastrophe lay not in changes in the markets, but changes in the law. In particular, the credit crisis can be traced to Congress's 2000 passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which radically altered the traditional legal approach to financial derivatives.

This shift in the legal treatment of financial derivatives has brought the banking system to its knees. The …

Regulate Otc Derivatives By Deregulating Them: Response To Comments, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Response to comments by Jean Helwege, Peter Wallison, and Craig Pirrong on the author's article, "Regulate OTC Derivatives By Deregulating Them." Article predates the author's affiliation with Cornell Law School.

How Deregulating Derivatives Led To Disaster, And Why Re-Regulating Them Can Prevent Another, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

When credit markets froze up in the fall of 2008, many economists pronounced the crisis both inexplicable and unforeseeable. That’s because they were economists, not lawyers.

Lawyers who specialize in financial regulation, and especially the small cadre who specialize in derivatives regulation, understood what went wrong. (Some even predicted it.) That’s because the roots of the catastrophe lay not in changes in the markets, but changes in the law. Perhaps the most important of those changes was the U.S. Congress’s decision to deregulate financial derivatives with the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA) of 2000.

Prior to 2000, off-exchange derivatives contracts …

Frictions And Tax-Motivated Hedging: An Empirical Exploration Of Publicly-Traded Exchangeable Securities, William M. Gentry, David M. Schizer

Faculty Scholarship

As financial engineering becomes more sophisticated, taxing income from capital becomes increasingly difficult. We offer the first empirical study of a high profile strategy known as "taxfree hedging," which offers economic benefits of a sale without tnggering tax. We explore nontax costs that taxpayers face when hedging by issuing so-called "DECS," "PHONES," and other publicly-traded exchangeable securities. Focusing on 61 transactions between 1993 and 2001, we shed light on why taxpayers might prefer to hedge through private "over-the-counter" transactions: An offering of exchangeable securities is announced in advance and implemented all at once, triggering an almost 4 percent decline in …

A Normative Analysis Of New Financially Engineered Derivatives, Peter H. Huang

Publications

This Article analyzes whether the introduction of new derivative assets makes a society better or worse off. Because trading such non-redundant derivatives produces new distributions of income across time and over possible future contingencies, individuals can utilize such financial instruments to hedge risks not possible before the introduction of these assets. Thus, it may seem that new derivatives unambiguously benefit society. In fact, introducing sufficiently many new derivatives completes asset markets. Asset markets are complete if trading on them can attain every possible payoff pattern of wealth across time and over possible future contingencies. The first fundamental theorem of welfare …

Betting The Bank: How Derivatives Trading Under Conditions Of Uncertainty Can Increase Risks And Erode Returns In Financial Markets, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

On April 12, 1994, Procter & Gamble Co. announced that it had incurred pre-tax losses of $157 million from trading in leveraged interest rate swaps, a form of financial derivative. At the time that figure seemed enormous. Yet within a year, Procter & Gamble's misfortune had been overshadowed by that of Orange County, a wealthy California enclave that lost an estimated $2.5 billion of its investment fund as a result of dealings in reverse-repurchase agreements, inverse floaters, and other arcane instruments. Recent months have seen further losses by investment funds, government entities, and even colleges and Native American tribes. Perhaps …