Unintended Consequences of LOLR Facilities: The Case of Illiquid Leverage

Viral Acharya and Bruce Tuckman

No 19773, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: While the direct effect of lender-of-last-resort (LOLR) facilities is to forestall the default of financial firms that lose funding liquidity, an indirect effect is to allow these firms to minimize deleveraging sales of illiquid assets. This unintended consequence of LOLR facilities manifests itself as excess illiquid leverage in the financial sector, can make future liquidity shortfalls more likely, and can lead to an increase in default risks. Furthermore, this increase in default risk can occur despite the fact that the combination of LOLR facilities and reduced asset sales raises the prices of illiquid assets. The behavior of U.S. broker-dealers during the crisis of 2007-2009 is consistent with the unintended consequence just described. In particular, given the Federal Reserve's LOLR facilities, broker-dealers could afford to try to wait out the crisis. While they did reduce traditional measures of leverage to varying degrees, they failed to reduce sufficiently their illiquid leverage, which contributed to their failures or near failures. Several mechanisms that might address this unintended consequence of LOLR facili--ties are explored: condition LOLR access and terms on the financial health of borrowers; condition LOLR access and terms on asset sales and deleveraging; and, especially, in--stead of supporting troubled financial firms, open LOLR facilities to financially sound, potential buyers of illiquid assets.

JEL-codes: D62 E58 G01 G21 G24 G28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-12
Note: CF IFM ME
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published as IMF Economic Review 62, 606-655 (November 2014) | doi:10.1057/imfer.2014.26 ARTICLE TOOLS Send to a friend Request Permission Export citation RIS MODS Endnote BibTex Word 2007 Unintended Consequences of LOLR Facilities: The Case of Illiquid Leverage Viral V Acharya and Bruce Tuckman

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Journal Article: Unintended Consequences of LOLR Facilities: The Case of Illiquid Leverage (2014)
Working Paper: Unintended Consequences of LOLR Facilities: The Case of Illiquid Leverage (2013)
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