Economic History Commons^™

The Money Market Investor Funding Facility (U.S. Gfc), Rosalind Z. Wiggins

Journal of Financial Crises

In mid-September 2008, money market mutual funds (MMMFs) began to experience run-like redemption requests after the Reserve Primary Fund “broke the buck.” As a result, MMMFs became reluctant to roll over or invest in commercial paper (CP) and faced the prospect of selling asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) they held into a declining market to raise cash. The money markets quickly became negatively impacted, and on October 21, 2008, the Fed announced the Money Market Investor Funding Facility (MMIFF), which would loan funds to a series of special purpose vehicles (SPVs) established by the private sector. The SPVs would use the …

The Primary Dealer Credit Facility (Pdcf) (U.S. Gfc), Karen Yang

Journal of Financial Crises

On March 16, 2008, the Federal Reserve created the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, or PDCF, to provide overnight funding to primary dealers in the tri-party repurchase agreement (repo) market, where lenders had become increasingly risk averse. Loans were fully secured by (initially) investment-grade securities and offered at the primary credit rate by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The eligible collateral was significantly expanded in September 2008, after rumors of Lehman Brothers potentially filing for bankruptcy, to include all of the types of instruments that could be pledged at the two major tri-party repo clearing banks. The PDCF was …

The Federal Reserve’S Response To The 1987 Market Crash (U.S. Historical), Kaleb B. Nygaard

Journal of Financial Crises

The S&P 500 lost 10% the week ending Friday, October 16, 1987, and lost an additional 20% the following Monday, October 19, 1987. The date would be remembered as Black Monday. The Federal Reserve (the Fed) responded to the crash in four distinct ways: (1) issuing a public statement promising to provide liquidity, as needed, “to support the economic and financial system”; (2) providing support to the Treasury securities market by injecting in-high-demand maturities into the market via reverse repurchase agreements; (3) allowing the federal funds rate to fall from 7.5% to 7.0% and below; and (4) intervening directly to …

Lessons Learned: A Conversation With Paul A. Volcker, Andrew Metrick, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Kaleb B. Nygaard

Journal of Financial Crises

On March 26, 2019, Andrew Metrick, the Janet Yellen Professor of Finance at the Yale School of Management and Founder and Director of the Yale Program on Financial Stabilitysat down with Paul A. Volcker to discuss his perspectives on the Federal Reserve, central banking autonomy, “too big to fail,” and how his perspectives on these topics have changed over the decades.It turned out to be one of the last interviews given by the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve System who passed away on December 8, 2019, at the age of 92.

The Federal Reserve’S Financial Crisis Response E: The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

Securitization is a process that allows banks and other lenders to package loans and sell them as bonds called asset-backed securities (ABS), removing them from their balance sheets and immediately generating cash for new loans. ABS are an important component of the financing cycle for many types of loans to households and small businesses, including mortgages. In the fall of 2008, financial markets began experiencing disturbances as the effects of the U.S. subprime market meltdown spread. The ABS market froze decreasing the volume of new loans to households and small businesses. The Federal Reserve became very concerned about the potential …

The Federal Reserve’S Financial Crisis Response D: Commercial Paper Market Facilities, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

During the summer of 2007, the U.S. residential mortgage market began to decline sharply negatively impacting the asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) market, which often relied on mortgages as underlying support. Money Market Mutual Funds (MMMFs), significant investors in commercial paper (CP), quickly retreated from the market, causing a substantial decline in outstanding ABCP. In September 2008, pressures on the markets severely escalated again, when the Reserve Primary Fund MMMF “broke the buck” and prompted run-like redemption requests by many MMMF investors. These disruptions resulted in higher rates and shorter maturities, practically freezing the market for term CP. Concerned about the …

The Federal Reserve’S Financial Crisis Response C: Providing U.S. Dollars To Foreign Central Banks, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

The financial crisis that began in late 2007 with the decline in the United States (U.S.) subprime mortgage markets quickly spread to other markets and eventually disrupted the interbank funding markets in the U.S. as well as overseas. To address the strain in the U.S. dollar (USD) funding markets, the Federal Reserve worked with foreign central banks around the world to provide USD liquidity to affected overseas markets by entering into currency swap agreements. Following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, and the resulting further destabilization of the world’s financial systems, the size and utilization of these swaps …

The Federal Reserve’S Financial Crisis Response B: Lending & Credit Programs For Primary Dealers, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Patricia C. Mosser, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

Beginning in the summer 2007 the Federal Reserve (the Fed) deployed numerous conventional and innovative programs to address the credit crisis occurring in the wholesale lending markets that was beginning to affect the broader financial markets and threaten the economy at large. Two of those programs, the Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) and the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF) were aimed at providing liquidity to primary dealers and required the Fed to rely on its authority under Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act. Section 13(3) is a Depression Era amendment that permits the Fed expanded powers in “unusual and …

The Federal Reserve’S Financial Crisis Response A: Lending & Credit Programs For Depository Institutions, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

Beginning in summer 2007, the Federal Reserve (the Fed) was called upon to address a severe disruption in the interbank lending markets sparked by a downturn in the subprime mortgage market. As these developments began to impact the ability of banks to raise adequate funding, the Fed encouraged them to utilize the Discount Window (DW), its standing facility for lending to depository institutions, and repeatedly decreased the lending rate to make the facility more accessible. Despite the Fed’s efforts, for a number of reasons, including historical perceptions of stigma, banks were reluctant to utilize the DW. In December 2007, the …

Lessons Learned: James (Jim) Millstein, Alec Buchholtz, Rosalind Z. Wiggins

Journal of Financial Crises

Millstein, who was the Chief Restructuring Officer, U.S. Department of the Treasury, during the Global Financial Crisis and instrumental in the rescue of American International Group, gives us his take on how best to prepare for future crises

Restructuring And Forgiveness In Financial Crises C: The Swedish Banking Crisis Of 1990-94, Christian M. Mcnamara, Dr. Lars Thunell, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

In the Spring of 1992, the Swedish government faced a dilemma. The country was in the midst of an economic downturn stemming from the collapse of asset prices (especially in real estate) that had spiked as a result of a credit boom that followed the deregulation of the Swedish banking system in the mid-1980s. Initially the impact of the downturn on the country’s banks had seemed to be limited to a small number of specific firms that the government moved to assist on an ad hoc basis in 1991. However, evidence was mounting that the banking crisis was reaching a …

Guarantees And Capital Infusions In Response To Financial Crises C: U.S. 2009 Stress Test, Chase P. Ross, June Rhee, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

When President Obama took office in 2009, the Treasury focused on restarting bank lending and repairing the ability of the banking system as a whole to perform the role of credit intermediation. In order to do so, the Treasury needed to raise public confidence that banks had sufficient buffers to withstand even a very adverse economic scenario, especially given heightened uncertainty surrounding the outlook of the U.S. economy and potential losses in the banking system. The Supervisory Capital Assessment Program (SCAP)—the so-called “stress tests”—sought to rigorously measure the resilience of the largest bank holding companies. Those found to have insufficient …

Guarantees And Capital Infusions In Response To Financial Crises B: U.S. Guarantees During The Global Financial Crisis, June Rhee, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

During 2008-09, the federal government extended multiple guarantee programs in an effort to restore the financial market and contain the panic and crisis in the market. For example, the Treasury provided a temporary guarantee program for the money market funds, the FDIC decided to stand behind certain debts and non-interest-bearing transaction accounts, and the Treasury, the FDIC, and the Federal Reserve agreed to share losses in certain assets belonging to Citigroup. This case reviews these guarantee programs implemented during the global financial crisis by the government and explores the different rationale that shaped certain design features of each program.

Lessons Learned: Ray Dalio, Andrew Metrick, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Kaleb B. Nygaard

Journal of Financial Crises

Insights from a discussion with Ray Dalio, Founder, Chairman, and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Bridgewater Associates, one of the largest hedge funds in the world. Topics range from monetary policy to communications strategy when responding to a financial crisis.

Basel Iii G: Shadow Banking And Project Finance, Christian M. Mcnamara, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

The Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR), a liquidity standard introduced by Basel III, seeks to promote a better match between the liquidity of a bank’s assets and the manner in which the bank funds those assets. The NSFR requires banks to maintain a minimum amount of funding deemed “stable” by the Basel framework based on the liquidity of the banks’ assets and activities over a one-year timeframe. One of the areas seen as most affected by this development may be bank participation in project finance for infrastructure development. Since the global demand for infrastructure development remains robust, the shadow banking …

Basel Iii D: Swiss Finish To Basel Iii, Christian M. Mcnamara, Natalia Tente, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

After the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) introduced the Basel III framework in 2010, individual countries confronted the question of how best to implement the framework given their unique circumstances. Switzerland, with a banking industry that is both heavily concentrated and very large relative to the size of its overall economy, faced a special challenge. It ultimately adopted what is sometimes referred to as the “Swiss Finish” to Basel III—enhanced requirements applicable to Switzerland’s “too-big-to-fail” banks Credit Suisse and UBS that go beyond the base requirements established by the BCBS. Yet the prominent role played by relatively new contingent …

Basel Iii B: Basel Iii Overview, Christian M. Mcnamara, Michael Wedow, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

In the wake of the financial crisis of 2007-09, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) faced the critical task of diagnosing what went wrong and then updating regulatory standards aimed at preventing it from occurring again. In seeking to strengthen the microprudential regulation associated with the earlier Basel Accords while also adding a macroprudential overlay, Basel III consists of proposals in three main areas intended to address 1) capital reform, 2) liquidity standards, and 3) systemic risk and interconnectedness. This case considers the causes of the 2007-09 financial crisis and what they suggest about weaknesses in the Basel regime …

Incorporating Macroprudential Financial Regulation Into Monetary Policy, Aaron Klein

Journal of Financial Crises

This paper proposes two insights into financial regulation and monetary policy. The first enhances understanding the relationship between them, building on the automobile metaphor that describes monetary policy: when to accelerate or brake for curves miles ahead. Enhancing the metaphor, financial markets are the transmission. In a financial crisis, markets cease to function, equivalent to a transmission shifting into neutral. This explains both monetary policy’s diminished effectiveness in stimulating the economy and why the financial crisis shock to real economic output greatly exceeded central bank forecasts.

The second insight is that both excess leverage and fundamental mispricing of asset values …

Future And Value: The Library As Strategic Partner, Antje Mays

Charleston Library Conference

Broader economic trends spawn budget pressures for education and libraries, prompting a plethora of studies on the value and relevance of libraries. Numerous reports on economic decline in libraries and studies with mixed pronouncements on the value of libraries have led to a negative self-image within the library profession. Yet libraries’ leadership in connecting learners to knowledge is at the heart of producing many of the key skills sorely needed in robust societies and economies. Librarianship has many untapped opportunities for positioning itself as a prominent strategic partner. This paper outlines current research on the economic and societal context for …

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale C: Risk Limits, Metrics, And Models, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

Value at Risk (VaR) is one of the most commonly used ways to measure and monitor market risk. At JPMorgan Chase (JPM), very large derivative positions established by Bruno Iksil in the Synthetic Credit Portfolio (SCP) caused the bank’s Chief Investment Office (CIO) to exceed its VaR limit for four days in a row in January 2012. In response, the CIO changed to a new VaR model on January 30, which appeared to immediately reduce VaR by half. However, JPM soon discovered that this new VaR model had not been properly implemented and the bank went back to using the …

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale B: Derivatives Valuation, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

After consistently producing positive results through 2011, the JPMorgan Chase (JPM) traders who oversaw the bank’s Synthetic Credit Portfolio (SCP) grew alarmed by a consistent string of losses beginning in January 2012. (The SCP was maintained by JPM to help hedge default risk and was the source of the 2012 London Whale trading loss.) To minimize the losses reported to their superiors until such time that market prices hopefully turned in their favor, the SCP traders began valuing their largest derivative positions in a manner that was not consistent with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and JPM policy. The fair …

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale A: Risky Business, Arwin G. Zeissler, Daisuke Ikeda, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

In December 2011, the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) instructed the bank’s Chief Investment Office to reduce the size of its Synthetic Credit Portfolio (SCP) during 2012, so that JPM could decrease its RiskWeighted Assets as the bank prepared to adopt the impending Basel III bank capital regulations. However, the SCP traders were also told to minimize the trading costs incurred to reduce Risk-Weighted Assets, while still maintaining the opportunity to profit from unexpected corporate bankruptcies. In an attempt to balance these competing objectives, head SCP derivatives trader Bruno Iksil suggested in January 2012 …

The Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program: A Systemwide Systemic Risk Exception, Lee Davison

Journal of Financial Crises

In the fall of 2008, short-term credit markets were all but frozen, creating liquidity issues for banks and bank holding companies that could not rollover their debt at reasonable rates. Fearing that the situation would worsen if something was not done, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve Board invoked, and the Secretary of the Treasury approved, the use of the “systemic risk exception” (SRE) under the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991, to provide unprecedented broad-based relief to struggling banks. The SRE permitted the FDIC to depart from its “least-cost” requirement when addressing failing …

The Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy D: The Role Of Ernst & Young, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Rosalind L. Bennett, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

For many years prior to its demise, Lehman Brothers employed Ernst & Young (EY) as the firm’s independent auditors to review its financial statements and express an opinion as to whether they fairly represented the company’s financial position. EY was supposed to try to detect fraud, determine whether a matter should be publicly disclosed, and communicate certain issues to Lehman’s Board audit committee. After Lehman filed for bankruptcy, it was discovered that the firm had employed questionable accounting with regard to an unorthodox financing transaction, Repo 105, which it used to make its results appear better than they were. EY …

The Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy A: Overview, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Thomas Piontek, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank, sought Chapter 11 protection, initiating the largest bankruptcy proceeding in U.S. history. The demise of the 164-year old firm was a seminal event in the global financial crisis. Under the direction of its long-time Chief Executive Officer Richard Fuld, Lehman had been very successful pursuing a high-leverage, high-risk business model that required it to daily raise billions of dollars to fund its operations. Beginning in 2006, Lehman began to invest aggressively in real-estate-related assets and soon had significant exposures to housing and subprime mortgages, just as these …

New Jersey Urban Enterprise Zone Program Assessment 2019, Thomas Edison State University, Pel Analytics, Anderson Economic Group, The John S. Watson Institute For Public Policy

Urban Mayors Policy Center

In 2019, the State of New Jersey sought an evaluation of its Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ) Program to determine the program’s economic impact and make recommendations for the program’s future. The John S. Watson Institute of Public Policy of Thomas Edison State University joined with PEL Analytics and Anderson Economic Group to produce the following study. The main recommendation of this analysis is to retain the UEZ Program while instituting various changes to make it stronger. Recommended changes in brief include reinstating some form of Zone Assistance Funds (ZAFs), creating a better system to collect data and track outcomes, assisting …

Entrepreneurship Education Empowers Youth To Change Their Lives, Marianna Brashear, Jason Riddle

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) aims at equipping Title 1 schools with free, hands-on, engaging materials that any teacher can facilitate either individually or in a classroom setting with no background in entrepreneurship necessary. These versatile lessons, courses, and workshops teach the entrepreneurial mindset optimizing opportunities for grades 8-12 students no matter which life/career path they choose.

The Purloined Letters: A Collection Of Mail Robbery Reports From Ohio Papers, 1841-1850, Marc Cibella

Nineteenth-Century Ohio Literature

Marc Cibella’s essay introduces and explains why nineteenth-century Americans got excited about newspaper reports of mail robbery.

Rop Distribution, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Folder Cover Label
  Shaikh, A. (2018). NA-24-09. Department of Economics, New School for Social Research.This item is a folder cover label that marks research materials on historical asset returns and macroeconomic data.
• Published Report
  Taylor, A. M. (2018, December). The rate of return on everything. NBER Reporter. National Bureau of Economic Research. This item is a published economic report reviewing long-run rates of return across major asset classes. It compares residential real estate and corporate equities over a historical period.

The Rate Of Return On Everything, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Folder Cover Label
  Shaikh, A. (2018). NA-24-09. Department of Economics, New School for Social Research.This item is a folder cover label that marks research materials on historical asset returns and macroeconomic data.
• Published Report
  Taylor, A. M. (2018, December). The rate of return on everything. NBER Reporter. National Bureau of Economic Research. This item is a published economic report reviewing long-run rates of return across major asset classes. It compares residential real estate and corporate equities over a historical period.