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Asset Fire Sales and Credit Easing

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Andrei Shleifer
  • Robert W. Vishny

Abstract

In a January 2009 lecture on the financial crisis, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke advocated a new Fed policy of credit easing, defined as a combination of lending to financial institutions, providing liquidity directly to key credit markets, and buying of long term securities. We show that Bernanke's analysis and recommendations can be naturally considered in a model of "unstable banking," which relies on two mechanisms: 1) fire sales reduce asset prices below fundamental values, and 2) financial institutions prefer speculation to new lending when markets are dislocated. We analyze credit easing and compare it to alternative government interventions during the crisis.

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File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.100.2.46
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Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal American Economic Review.

Volume (Year): 100 (2010)
Issue (Month): 2 (May)
Pages: 46-50

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Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:100:y:2010:i:2:p:46-50
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.100.2.46
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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
  • 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
  • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
  • Q32 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Exhaustible Resources and Economic Development
  • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices
  • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
  • F18 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Environment
  • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
  • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
  • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
  • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Douglas W. Diamond & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2009. "Fear of Fire Sales and the Credit Freeze," NBER Working Papers 14925, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. " The Limits of Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, March.
  3. Bernanke, Ben S, 1983. "Nonmonetary Effects of the Financial Crisis in Propagation of the Great Depression," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(3), pages 257-276, June.
  4. Gorton, Gary & Metrick, Andrew, 2012. "Securitized banking and the run on repo," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 425-451.
  5. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1992. " Liquidation Values and Debt Capacity: A Market Equilibrium Approach," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1343-1366, September.
  6. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 2010. "Unstable banking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(3), pages 306-318, September.
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Cited by:

  1. Dungey, Mardi & Milunovich, George & Thorp, Susan & Yang, Minxian, 2015. "Endogenous crisis dating and contagion using smooth transition structural GARCH," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 71-79.
  2. Gabriel Jiménez & Steven Ongena & José-Luis Peydró & Jesús Saurina, 2012. "Macroprudential policy, countercyclical bank capital buffers and credit supply: Evidence from the Spanish dynamic provisioning experiments," Working Paper Research 231, National Bank of Belgium.
  3. Sanjiv Das & Seoyoung Kim, 2016. "The Design and Risk Management of Structured Finance Vehicles," Journal of Risk and Financial Management, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 9(4), pages 1-21, October.
  4. Hanson, Samuel G. & Sunderam, Adi, 2013. "Are there too many safe securities? Securitization and the incentives for information production," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 565-584.
  5. repec:eee:finsta:v:29:y:2017:i:c:p:92-105 is not listed on IDEAS
  6. Avgouleas, Emilios & Goodhart, Charles & Schoenmaker, Dirk, 2013. "Bank Resolution Plans as a catalyst for global financial reform," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 210-218.
  7. Gertler, Mark & Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Queralto, Albert, 2012. "Financial crises, bank risk exposure and government financial policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(S), pages 17-34.
  8. Pol, Eduardo, 2012. "The preponderant causes of the USA banking crisis 2007–08," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 519-528.
  9. Racicot, François-Éric & Théoret, Raymond, 2016. "Macroeconomic shocks, forward-looking dynamics, and the behavior of hedge funds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 41-61.

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