A detrimental feedback loop: deleveraging and adverse selection

Christoph Bertsch

No 277, Working Paper Series from Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden)

Abstract: Market distress can be the catalyst of a deleveraging wave, as in the 2007/08 financial crisis. This paper demonstrates how market distress and deleveraging can fuel each other in the presence of adverse selection problems in asset markets. At the core of the detrimental feedback loop is agents' desire to reduce their reliance on distressed asset markets by decreasing their leverage which in turn amplifies the adverse selection problem in asset markets. In the extreme case, this leads to a market breakdown. I find that adverse selection creates both an "ex-ante" inefficiency because it distorts agents' long-term leverage choices and an "interim" inefficiency because it distorts agents' short-term liquidity management. I derive important implications for central bank policy.

Keywords: Leverage; endogenous borrowing constraints; financial crisis; liquidity; asymmetric information; central bank policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D82 E58 G01 G20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2013-09-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-cba, nep-cta and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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