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Prone to Fail: The Pre-crisis Financial System

Author

Listed:
  • Darrell Duffie
Abstract
The financial crisis that began in 2007 was triggered by over-leveraged homeowners and a severe downturn in US housing markets. However, a reasonably well-supervised financial system would have been much more resilient to this and other types of severe shocks. Instead, the core of the financial system became a key channel of propagation and magnification of losses suffered in the housing market. Critical financial intermediaries failed, or were bailed out, or dramatically reduced their provision of liquidity and credit to the economy. In short, the core financial system ceased to perform its intended functions for the real economy at a reasonable level of effectiveness. As a result, the impact of the housing-market shock on the rest of the economy was much larger than necessary. In this essay, I will review the key sources of fragility in the core financial system. I discuss the weakly supervised balance sheets of the largest banks and investment banks; the run-prone designs and weak regulation of the markets for securities financing and over-the-counter derivatives; the undue reliance of regulators on market discipline; and the interplay of too-big-to-fail and the failure of market discipline. Finally, I point to some significant positive strides that have been made since the crisis: improvements in the capitalization of the largest financial institutions, a reduction of unsafe practices and infrastructure in the markets for securities financing and derivatives, and a significantly reduced presumption that the largest financial firms will be bailed out by taxpayer money in the future. But I will also mention some remaining challenges to financial stability that could be addressed with better regulation and market infrastructure.

Suggested Citation

  • Darrell Duffie, 2019. "Prone to Fail: The Pre-crisis Financial System," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 81-106, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:33:y:2019:i:1:p:81-106
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.33.1.81
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Maxime Delabarre, 2020. "Could the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act have prevented the financial crisis?," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03014511, HAL.
    2. Puriya Abbassi & Rajkamal Iyer & José-Luis Peydró & Paul E. Soto, 2020. "Stressed banks? Evidence from the largest-ever supervisory review," Economics Working Papers 1721, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    3. Wee Chian Koh & Shu Yu, 2021. "A Decade After the 2009 Global Recession: Macroeconomic Developments," Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy (JICEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 12(02), pages 1-24, June.
    4. Scheicher, Martin, 2023. "Intermediation in US and EU bond and swap markets: stylised facts, trends and impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis in March 2020," ESRB Occasional Paper Series 24, European Systemic Risk Board.
    5. Arbatli Saxegaard, Elif C. & Davis, Steven J. & Ito, Arata & Miake, Naoko, 2022. "Policy uncertainty in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    6. Aikman, David & Bridges, Jonathan & Hacioglu Hoke, Sinem & O’Neill, Cian & Raja, Akash, 2019. "Credit, capital and crises: a GDP-at-Risk approach," Bank of England working papers 824, Bank of England, revised 18 Oct 2019.
    7. Maxime Delabarre, 2020. "Could the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act have prevented the financial crisis?," Working Papers hal-03014511, HAL.
    8. Nicholas A. Curott & Tyler Watts & Benjamin R. Thrasher, 2020. "Government-Cheerleading Bias in Money and Banking Textbooks," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 17(1), pages 1-98–151, March.
    9. Jessie Jiaxu Wang & Agostino Capponi & Hongzhong Zhang, 2022. "A Theory of Collateral Requirements for Central Counterparties," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(9), pages 6993-7017, September.
    10. Fantacci, Luca & Lorenzini, Marcella, 2024. "Technology versus trust: Non-bank credit systems from notarized loans in Early Modern Europe to cryptolending," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 83-95.
    11. Steven J. Davis, 2019. "Rising Policy Uncertainty," NBER Working Papers 26243, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Günsür, Başak Tanyeri & Bulut, Emre, 2022. "Investor reactions to major events in the sub-prime mortgage crisis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets

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