IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v115y2025i3p945-74.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Decline of Too Big to Fail

Author

Listed:
  • Antje Berndt
  • Darrell Duffie
  • Yichao Zhu

Abstract

For globally systemically important banks (GSIBs) with US headquarters, we find significant reductions in market-implied probabilities of government bailout after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), along with roughly 170 percent higher wholesale debt financing costs for these banks after controlling for insolvency risk. Since the GFC, bank creditors appear to expect much larger losses in the event that a GSIB approaches insolvency. In this sense, we estimate a decline of "too big to fail."

Suggested Citation

  • Antje Berndt & Darrell Duffie & Yichao Zhu, 2025. "The Decline of Too Big to Fail," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 115(3), pages 945-974, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:115:y:2025:i:3:p:945-74
    DOI: 10.1257/aer.20220846
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20220846
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=pi34TQ6VX3qeGXjDNAGdODO3sOiZrlgO
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=da_F3EVnWJ6nac4iTVasVouhGPhALdax
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/aer.20220846?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bai, Jennie & Goldstein, Robert S. & Yang, Fan, 2020. "Is the credit spread puzzle a myth?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(2), pages 297-319.
    2. John B. Taylor & John C. Williams, 2009. "A black swan in the money market," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Jan.
    3. Antje Berndt & Rohan Douglas & Darrell Duffie & Mark Ferguson, 2018. "Corporate Credit Risk Premia [Fallen angels and price pressure]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(2), pages 419-454.
    4. Mäkinen, Taneli & Sarno, Lucio & Zinna, Gabriele, 2020. "Risky bank guarantees," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(2), pages 490-522.
    5. Lammertjan Dam & Michael Koetter, 2012. "Bank Bailouts and Moral Hazard: Evidence from Germany," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(8), pages 2343-2380.
    6. Tryggvi Gudmundsson, 2016. "Whose Credit Line is it Anyway: An Update on Banks' Implicit Subsidies," IMF Working Papers 2016/224, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Joanna Kisielinska, 2013. "The exact bootstrap method shown on the example of the mean and variance estimation," Computational Statistics, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 1061-1077, June.
    8. Bryan Kelly & Hanno Lustig & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2016. "Too-Systemic-to-Fail: What Option Markets Imply about Sector-Wide Government Guarantees," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(6), pages 1278-1319, June.
    9. Anginer, Deniz & Warburton, A. Joseph, 2014. "The Chrysler effect: The impact of government intervention on borrowing costs," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 62-79.
    10. Ueda, Kenichi & Weder di Mauro, B., 2013. "Quantifying structural subsidy values for systemically important financial institutions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 3830-3842.
    11. Noss, Joseph & Sowerbutts, Rhiannon, 2012. "Financial Stability Paper No 15: The implicit subsidy of banks," Bank of England Financial Stability Papers 15, Bank of England.
    12. Priyank Gandhi & Hanno Lustig & Alberto Plazzi, 2020. "Equity Is Cheap for Large Financial Institutions," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(9), pages 4231-4271.
    13. Balasubramnian, Bhanu & Cyree, Ken B., 2011. "Market discipline of banks: Why are yield spreads on bank-issued subordinated notes and debentures not sensitive to bank risks?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 21-35, January.
    14. Glover, Brent, 2016. "The expected cost of default," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 284-299.
    15. Michael Schwert, 2020. "Does Borrowing from Banks Cost More than Borrowing from the Market?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(2), pages 905-947, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cummings, James R. & Guo, Yilian, 2020. "Do the Basel III capital reforms reduce the implicit subsidy of systemically important banks? Australian evidence," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    2. Nicola Cetorelli & James Traina, 2021. "Resolving “Too Big to Fail”," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 1-23, August.
    3. Acharya, Viral & Anginer, Deniz & Warburton, Joe, 2016. "The End of Market Discipline? Investor Expectations of Implicit Government Guarantees," MPRA Paper 79700, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Javed Ahmed & Christopher Anderson & Rebecca Zarutskie, 2015. "Are the Borrowing Costs of Large Financial Firms Unusual?," Working Papers 15-10, Office of Financial Research, US Department of the Treasury.
    5. Hett, Florian & Schmidt, Alexander, 2017. "Bank rescues and bailout expectations: The erosion of market discipline during the financial crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(3), pages 635-651.
    6. Tryggvi Gudmundsson, 2016. "Whose Credit Line is it Anyway: An Update on Banks' Implicit Subsidies," IMF Working Papers 2016/224, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Claudia M. Buch & Linda S. Goldberg, 2021. "Complexity and Riskiness of Banking Organizations: Evidence from the International Banking Research Network," Staff Reports 966, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    8. Tsafack, Georges & Li, Yifei & Beliaeva, Natalia, 2021. "Too-big-to-fail: The value of government guarantee," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    9. Siegert, Casper & Willison, Matthew, 2015. "Financial Stability Paper 32: Estimating the extent of the ‘too big to fail’ problem – a review of existing approaches," Bank of England Financial Stability Papers 32, Bank of England.
    10. Frederic Malherbe, 2020. "Optimal Capital Requirements over the Business and Financial Cycles," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 139-174, July.
    11. Ruggero Jappelli & Loriana Pelizzon & Alberto Plazzi, 2021. "The Core, the Periphery, and the Disaster: Corporate-Sovereign Nexus in COVID-19 Times," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 21-30, Swiss Finance Institute.
    12. Antzoulatos, Angelos A. & Tsoumas, Chris, 2014. "Institutions, moral hazard and expected government support of banks," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 161-171.
    13. Moenninghoff, Sebastian C. & Ongena, Steven & Wieandt, Axel, 2015. "The perennial challenge to counter Too-Big-to-Fail in banking: Empirical evidence from the new international regulation dealing with Global Systemically Important Banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 221-236.
    14. Fabrizio Crespi & Emanuela Giacomini & Danilo V. Mascia, 2019. "Bail‐in rules and the pricing of Italian bank bonds," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 25(5), pages 1321-1347, November.
    15. Marwan Alzoubi & Ayman Abdalmajeed Alsmadi & Hamad kasasbeh, 2022. "Systemically Important Bank: A Bibliometric Analysis for the Period of 2002 to 2022," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(4), pages 21582440221, December.
    16. Murphy, Austin & Headley, Adrian, 2022. "An empirical evaluation of alternative fundamental models of credit spreads," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    17. Mario Bellia & Sara Maccaferri & Sebastian Schich, 2022. "Limiting too-big-to-fail: market reactions to policy announcements and actions," Journal of Banking Regulation, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(4), pages 368-389, December.
    18. Umlauft, Thomas, 2014. "The Paradoxical Genesis of Too-Big-To-Fail," MPRA Paper 99301, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Andrew G. Atkeson & Adrien d’Avernas & Andrea L. Eisfeldt & Pierre-Olivier Weill, 2019. "Government Guarantees and the Valuation of American Banks," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 81-145.
    20. Andrea Zaghini, 2014. "Bank Bonds: Size, Systemic Relevance and the Sovereign," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(2), pages 161-184, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • 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
    • G33 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Bankruptcy; Liquidation
    • H81 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Governmental Loans; Loan Guarantees; Credits; Grants; Bailouts

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:115:y:2025:i:3:p:945-74. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.