Economic Policy Review Executive Summary
Shadow Banking
Recapping an article from the December 2013 issue of
Contact authors
E-mail authors
the Economic Policy Review, Volume 19, Number 2 View full article PDF

 

16 pages / 248 kb

Authors: Zoltan Pozsar, Tobias Adrian, Adam Ashcraft, and Hayley Boesky

Disclaimer
Index of executive summaries
  • The rapid growth of the market-based financial system since the mid-1980s has changed the nature of financial intermediation.

  • Within the system, “shadow banks” have served a critical role, especially in the run-up to the 2007-09 financial crisis.

  • Shadow banks are financial intermediaries that conduct maturity, credit, and liquidity transformation without explicit access to central bank liquidity or public sector credit guarantees.

  • The banks intermediate credit through a variety of securitization and secured funding techniques, including asset-backed commercial paper and securities, collateralized debt obligations, and repos.

  • New York Fed authors Adrian and Ashcraft, with former colleagues Boesky and Pozsar, analyze the institutional features of shadow banks, their economic roles, and their relation to traditional banks.

  • They emphasize that an understanding of the “plumbing” of the shadow banking system is an important underpinning for any study of financial system interlinkages.

  • The authors observe that while many reform efforts are focused on remediating the excesses of the recent credit bubble, increased capital and liquidity standards for depository institutions and insurance companies are likely to heighten the returns to shadow banks.

  • Shadow banking is therefore expected to be a significant part of the financial system, although quite possibly in a different form, for the foreseeable future.

Accompanying the article is “The Shadow Banking System,” a map of the funding flows in the system.


About the Authors

Zoltan Pozsar is a senior advisor at the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Research; Tobias Adrian is a vice president and Adam Ashcraft a senior vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Hayley Boesky is a vice chairman at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this summary are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System.

By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Statement. You can learn more about how we use cookies by reviewing our Privacy Statement.   Close