IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2025-43.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Black Swans and Financial Stability: A Framework for Building Resilience

Author

Abstract

This article refines the concept of black swans, typically described as highly unlikely and catastrophic events, by clearly distinguishing between knowable and unknowable events. By emphasizing that black swans are “unknown unknowns,” the article highlights that the realization of new black swans cannot be prevented and motivates a need for policies that build the financial system's resilience to unforeseeable crises. The article introduces a "resilience principle" that calls for policies that are adaptable, universal, and systemic. Examples are provided of policies with these features, none of which relies on the official sector being better positioned than the private sector to anticipate the unknown.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Barth & Stacey L. Schreft, 2025. "Black Swans and Financial Stability: A Framework for Building Resilience," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2025-043, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2025-43
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2025.043
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2025043pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17016/FEDS.2025.043?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. Thornton, M. K. & Thornton, R. L., 1990. "The Financial Crisis of A. D. 33: A Keynesian Depression?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(03), pages 655-662, September.
    2. Tomasz Piskorski & Amit Seru & James Witkin, 2015. "Asset Quality Misrepresentation by Financial Intermediaries: Evidence from the RMBS Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(6), pages 2635-2678, December.
    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. Stefano Colonnello & Mariela Dal Borgo, 2024. "Raising Household Leverage: Evidence from Co-Financed Mortgages," Working Papers 2024: 01, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    2. Manthos D. Delis & Panagiotis Papadopoulos, 2019. "Mortgage Lending Discrimination Across the U.S.: New Methodology and New Evidence," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 341-368, December.
    3. Greg Buchak & Gregor Matvos & Tomasz Piskorski & Amit Seru, 2024. "Beyond the Balance Sheet Model of Banking: Implications for Bank Regulation and Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 132(2), pages 616-693.
    4. Goodstein, Ryan & Hanouna, Paul & Ramirez, Carlos D. & Stahel, Christof W., 2017. "Contagion effects in strategic mortgage defaults," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 50-60.
    5. Robert Shimer, 2014. "Private Information in the Mortgage Market: Evidence and a Theory of Crises," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Sofía Bauducco & Lawrence Christiano & Claudio Raddatz (ed.),Macroeconomic and Financial Stability: challenges for Monetary Policy, edition 1, volume 19, chapter 4, pages 117-150, Central Bank of Chile.
    6. Sascha Tobias Wengerek & Benjamin Hippert & André Uhde, 2019. "Risk allocation through securitization - Evidence from non-performing loans," Working Papers Dissertations 58, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    7. Craig B. Merrill & Taylor D. Nadauld & Philip E. Strahan, 2019. "Final Demand for Structured Finance Securities," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(1), pages 390-412, January.
    8. Yunus Aksoy & Henrique S. Basso, 2014. "Securitization and Asset Prices," Birkbeck Working Papers in Economics and Finance 1411, Birkbeck, Department of Economics, Mathematics & Statistics.
    9. Shi, Lan & Zhang, Yan, 2015. "Appraisal inflation: Evidence from the 2009 GSE HVCC intervention," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 71-90.
    10. Gui, Zhengqing & Huang, Yangguang & Zhao, Xiaojian, 2024. "Financial fraud and investor awareness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 104-123.
    11. Ing-Haw Cheng & Sahil Raina & Wei Xiong, 2014. "Wall Street and the Housing Bubble," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2797-2829, September.
    12. Karimov, Nodirbek & Kara, Alper & Downing, Gareth & Marqués-Ibáñez, David, 2024. "The impact of regulatory changes on rating behaviour," Working Paper Series 2920, European Central Bank.
    13. Alexei Tchistyi, 2018. "An Equilibrium Model of Housing and Mortgage Markets with State-Contingent Lending Contracts," 2018 Meeting Papers 244, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    14. Anjan V. Thakor, 2021. "Ethics, Culture, and Higher Purpose in Banking: Post-Crisis Governance Developments," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 17(71), pages 1-31, December.
    15. Ambrose, Brent W. & Coulson, N. Edward & Yoshida, Jiro, 2018. "Reassessing Taylor rules using improved housing rent data," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 243-257.
    16. Nicolas Caramp, 2021. "Sowing the Seeds of Financial Crises: Endogenous Asset Creation and Adverse Selection," Working Papers 342, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    17. Gottardi, Piero & Maurin, Vincent & Monnet, Cyril, 2025. "Fragility under joint financing: The (moral) hazards of diversification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    18. Benjamin J. Keys & Tomasz Piskorski & Amit Seru & Vincent Yao, 2014. "Mortgage Rates, Household Balance Sheets, and the Real Economy," NBER Working Papers 20561, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Mark Egan & Gregor Matvos & Amit Seru, 2022. "When Harry Fired Sally: The Double Standard in Punishing Misconduct," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(5), pages 1184-1248.
    20. Andrew Hertzberg, 2018. "A Theory of Disclosure in Speculative Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(12), pages 5787-5806, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedgfe:2025-43. 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: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.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.