A proposal to prevent wholesale financial failure by Lasse H. Pedersen and Nouriel Roubini
The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression has highlighted the risks from the collapse of systemically important financial institutions. Huge bail-outs were undertaken based on a fear that the collapse of such institutions would cause havoc, with collateral damage to the real economy. Examples include Bear Stearns, Fannie, Freddie, AIG, Citi¬group, the insurance of money market funds and new US Federal Reserve programmes for banks and broker-dealers. Allowing Lehman Brothers to collapse had such severe systemic effects that the global financial system went into cardiac arrest and is still dealing with the aftermath. We propose a way to measure and limit this systemic risk and reduce the moral hazard and the cost of bail-outs. Our proposal is to impose a new systemic capital requirement and systemic insurance programme. The current situation leaves the system vulnerable to financial contagion when big banks (or many small ones) go bust. The root of the problem is that banks