How Would Hedge Fund Regulation Affect Investor Behavior? Implications for Systemic Risk

Naoaki Minamihashi and Naoki Wakamori

Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems from Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich

Abstract: We estimate an investors’ demand model for hedge funds to analyze the potential impact of leverage limits in the industry. Our estimation results highlight the importance of heterogeneous investor preference for the use of leverage, i.e., 20% of investors prefer leverage usage while others do not. We then conduct a policy simulation in which regulators put a cap on allowable leverage, as proposed by the Financial Stability Board in 2012. Simulation results suggest that the 200% leverage limit would lower the total demand (assets under management) for hedge funds by 10%. In particular, the regulation would lead to lower investments in highly leveraged funds and to lower investments in risky strategies, which, in turn, would reduce systemic risk.

Keywords: hedge funds; demand estimation; leverage; regulation; systemic risk (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G23 G38 L52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-09-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-cfn, nep-ger, nep-reg and nep-rmg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/21393/1/473.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:trf:wpaper:473

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems from Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tamilla Benkelberg ().