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The flight from maturity

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  • Gorton, Gary
  • Metrick, Andrew
  • Xie, Lei

Abstract

Why did the failure of Lehman Brothers make the financial crisis dramatically worse? Our answer is that the financial crisis was a process of a build-up of risk during the crisis prior to the Lehman failure. During the crisis market participants tried to preserve an option to withdraw by shortening maturities — the “flight from maturity”. We show that the flight from maturity was manifested in a steepening of the term structures of spreads in money markets. With increasingly short maturities, lenders created the possibility of fast exit. The failure of Lehman Brothers was the tipping point of this build-up of systemic fragility. A crisis is a dynamic process in which “tail risk” is endogenous.

Suggested Citation

  • Gorton, Gary & Metrick, Andrew & Xie, Lei, 2021. "The flight from maturity," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinin:v:47:y:2021:i:c:s1042957320300267
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfi.2020.100872
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    Cited by:

    1. Wayne Passmore & Alexander H. von Hafften, 2017. "Are Basel's Capital Surcharges for Global Systemically Important Banks Too Small?," FEDS Notes 2017-02-27-1, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Thomas B. King & Kurt F. Lewis, 2020. "Credit Risk, Liquidity, and Lies," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 16(5), pages 219-267, October.
    3. Priyanshi Gupta & Sanjay Sehgal, 2020. "Convergence of retail banking interest rates to households in euro area: time-varying measurement and determinants," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 25-65, February.
    4. Liu, Tianming & Xiong, Haifang & Li, Yifei & Wang, Zhiqiang, 2023. "The flight to safety during credit recovery: The role of implicit government guarantees," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    5. Doina Chichernea & Kershen Huang & Alex Petkevich, 2019. "Does maturity matter? The case of treasury futures volume," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(10), pages 1301-1321, October.
    6. Guillaume Vuillemey, 2015. "Derivatives markets : from bank risk management to financial stability [Les marchés de dérivés : gestion des risques bancaires et stabilité financière]," SciencePo Working papers Main tel-03507099, HAL.
    7. Guillaume Vuillemey, 2015. "Derivatives markets : from bank risk management to financial stability [Les marchés de dérivés : gestion des risques bancaires et stabilité financière]," SciencePo Working papers tel-03507099, HAL.
    8. Gao, Haoyu & Li, Jinxuan & Wen, Huiyu, 2023. "Bank funding costs during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises

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