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Journal of Financial Crises

Financial Crisis

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The Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy H: The Global Contagion, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Andrew Metrick Mar 2019

The Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy H: The Global Contagion, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

When Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, it was the largest such filing in U.S. history and a huge shock to the world’s financial markets, which were already stressed from the deflated housing bubble and questions about subprime mortgages. Lehman was the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank with assets of $639 billion and its operations spread across the globe. Lehman’s clients and counterparties began to disclose millions of dollars of potential losses as they accounted for their exposures. But the impact of Lehman’s demise was felt well beyond its counterparties. Concern regarding its real estate assets, its large …


The Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy B: Risk Limits And Stress Tests, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Andrew Metrick Mar 2019

The Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy B: Risk Limits And Stress Tests, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

Investment banks are in the business of taking calculated risks. Risk management infrastructure facilitates the safe pursuit of profits and the balancing of associated risks. By 2006, Lehman Brothers was thought to have a very respectable risk management system, and even its regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, viewed its risk framework as being fully compliant with regulatory requirements. In its public disclosures, Lehman characterized its risk controls as “meaningful constraints on its risk taking” and evidence of its continued financial stability. Beginning in late 2006, however, Lehman began dismantling its carefully crafted risk management framework as it pursued a …