Leverage? What leverage? [[electronic resource] ] : a deep dive into the U.S. flow of funds in search of clues to the global crisis / / Ashok Vir Bhatia and Tamim Bayoumi

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910462258303321
• Autore: Bhatia Ashok Vir
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Washington, D.C., : International Monetary Fund, c2012
• ISBN: 1-4755-1692-4; 1-4755-9760-6
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (31 p.)
• Collana: IMF working paper ; ; WP/12/162
• Altri autori (Persone): BayoumiTamim A
• Soggetti: Financial crises; Global Financial Crisis, 2008-2009; Financial leverage; Electronic books.
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references.
• Nota di contenuto: Cover; Contents; Glossary; Executive Summary; I. Introduction: Our Search for the Smoking Gun; Figures; 1. Leverage? What Leverage?; II. The Flow of Funds Accounts: From the Macro to the Financial; A. Nonfinancial Private Sector Net Worth: A Rational Gambit; 2. Was it Debtor Leverage?; B. Household Finances: Let the Good Times Roll; 3. Was it Households as Net Debtors?; C. Nonfinancial Business Finances: The Cash Cow; 4. Was it a Borrowing Spree by Firms?; D. Government Finances: Use that Firepower; 5. Was it Foreigners Buying U.S. Treasuries?; E. Foreign Investors in the U.S. Credit Markets: Pay to Play 6. Was it Foreigners Buying Everything?; F. Gross and Net Credit Growth: Strong for Long; 7. Was it Credit Growth?; G. Financial Sector Size and ""Churning"" Activity: Inward We Look; 8. Was it Financial Sector Size?; H. Financial Sector Structure and ""Shadow Banking"": Brave New World; 9. Was it ""Shadow Banking""?; I. Private-Label Securitization: Bankruptcy-Remote Indeed; 10. Was it the Bundling?; J. The Secured Wholesale Funding Chain: In Collateral We Trust; 11. Was it the Funding Model?; III. Conclusion: Investment Banks as the Fulcrum 12. In Summary; References
• Sommario/riassunto: This paper questions the view that leverage should have forewarned us of the global financial crisis of 2007-09, pointing to several gearing indicators that were neither useful portents of the onset of the crisis nor of its ferocity. Instead it shows, first, that the use of ill-suited collateral in the secured funding operations of U.S.-based investment banks was the fatal link between the collapse of structured finance and the global malfunction of funding markets that turbocharged the downdraft; and, second, that this insight (and others) can be decrypted from the Flow of Funds Accounts