Just How Big Is the Too Big to Fail Problem?

James Barth, Apanard Prabha and Phillip Swagel
Additional contact information
Apanard Prabha: Milken Institute, Santa Monica, CA

Working Papers from University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center

Abstract: The idea of banks too big to fail (TBTF) is not new. Indeed, it has been three decades since the first TBTF bailout due to concerns about serious and widespread financial repercussions. Since then, of course, big banks have grown much bigger and have become increasingly complex, both in the United States and elsewhere. In this paper, we put the issue of too big to fail in U.S. historical and quantitative perspective, and assess the potential impacts of recent regulatory changes. The developments relating to the TBTF problem based on a global perspective are also examined. The measures taken since the financial crisis of 2007-2009-including the Basel III regulatory reforms, domestic regulations like the Dodd-Frank Act, and the designation of global systemically important banks-have distinct purposes but also complement one another, to the extent that they are successful. Our analysis points out that despite the recent regulatory changes the future of TBTF remains unclear, but it is likely that it will be different from the past.

JEL-codes: G20 G21 G28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
http://fic.wharton.upenn.edu/fic/papers/12/12-06.pdf
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://fic.wharton.upenn.edu/fic/papers/12/12-06.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://wifpr.wharton.upenn.edu/fic/papers/12/12-06.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:ecl:upafin:12-06

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().