A leading finance expert explains how and why big banks fail—and what can be done to prevent it Dealer banks—that is, large banks that deal in securities and derivatives, such as J. P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs—are of a size and complexity that sharply distinguish them from typical commercial banks. When they fail, as we saw in the global financial crisis, they pose significant risks to our financial system and the world economy. How Big Banks Fail and What to Do about It examines how these banks collapse and how we can prevent the need to bail them out. In sharp, clinical detail, Darrell Duffie walks readers step-by-step through the mechanics of large-bank failures. He identifies where the cracks first appear when a dealer bank is weakened by severe trading losses, and demonstrates how the bank's relationships with its customers and business partners abruptly change when its solvency is threatened. As others seek to reduce their exposure to the dealer bank, the bank is forced to signal its strength by using up its slim stock of remaining liquid capital. Duffie shows how the key mechanisms in a dealer bank's collapse—such as Lehman Brothers' failure in 2008—derive from special institutional frameworks and regulations that influence the flight of short-term secured creditors, hedge-fund clients, derivatives counterparties, and most devastatingly, the loss of clearing and settlement services. How Big Banks Fail and What to Do about It reveals why today's regulatory and institutional frameworks for mitigating large-bank failures don't address the special risks to our financial system that are posed by dealer banks, and outlines the improvements in regulations and market institutions that are needed to address these systemic risks.

With the recent credit crisis there is a renewed interest in how banks operate and sometimes fail. This book offers an understandable explanation of the complex banking system and how to prevent unreasonable risk.

This volume examines the vulnerability of sound banks during financial crises helps understand the nature of financial crises and other banking issues traces the history of banking reform in the United States from 1933 until 1992 discusses deregulation in the US banking system

One of the major financial market events of the 1980s was the precipitous rise of depository institution failures including banks, savings and loan associations, and credit unions. Not since the 1930s has there been a similar period of turmoil in these industries. The events of the 1980s have inspired a renewed interest in the causes and cost of financial institution failure and several questions that had seldom been asked in the post-World War II economics literature have resurfaced Why do financial institutions fail? What are the costs of their failure? How do they differ from other firms and industries? What are the implications for financial market regulation? The Causes and Costs of Depository Institution Failures critically surveys and extends previous analyses of these questions. Audience: Scholars and researchers in the areas of money and banking, financial institutions, and financial markets, as well as regulators and policymakers.

"In a world where banks are perceived as unshakable fortresses, there is a worrying truth that lies just beneath the surface: banks are far more fragile and fail more frequently than we choose to believe. In the US alone, more than 560 banks have failed since the turn of the century, In South Africa, the collapse of Saambou in 2002 sparked the A2 banking Crisis, which saw half the country's banks deregistered in the aftermath. In 2023, the high-profile failures of SVB, First Rebuplic Bank, Signature Bank and Credit Suisse dominated global headlines and set off waves of panic across the international banking landscape."--Publisher's description.

The potential failure of a large bank presents vexing questions for policymakers. It poses significant risks to other financial institutions, to the financial system as a whole, and possibly to the economic and social order. Because of such fears, policymakers in many countries—developed and less developed, democratic and autocratic—respond by protecting bank creditors from all or some of the losses they otherwise would face. Failing banks are labeled "too big to fail" (or TBTF). This important new book examines the issues surrounding TBTF, explaining why it is a problem and discussing ways of dealing with it more effectively. Gary Stern and Ron Feldman, officers with the Federal Reserve, warn that not enough has been done to reduce creditors' expectations of TBTF protection. Many of the existing pledges and policies meant to convince creditors that they will bear market losses when large banks fail are not credible, resulting in significant net costs to the economy. The authors recommend that policymakers enact a series of reforms to reduce expectations of bailouts when large banks fail.

Offering a historical analysis of management in banking from the Medici to present day, this book explores how banks can cause devastating financial crisis when they fail. Rather than labelling management as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, the author focuses on the concept of absent management, which can occur as a result of complexity. The complexity of banking, which intensified alongside the phenomenal growth of banks in the 20th and 21st centuries, resulted in banks that are mismanaged or, at times, even unmanaged. Drawing on business school case studies including Barings and Lehman Brothers, this book showcases how absent management in banking has caused crises, depressions and recessions, and how ultimately it will continue to do so.