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What drives short-term credit spreads: credit risk, liquidity risk, or both? We investigate this issue using the structural approach to credit risk modeling and a novel data set of secondary market transaction prices for Chinese commercial papers (CPs). In particular, we propose and test a structural model with jump risk and exogenous market illiquidity under which the predicted yield spreads can be decomposed into a credit component and a liquidity component. We find that credit risk and, especially liquidity risk, are important determinants of short-term yield spreads. Our model-based decomposition results show that, on average, credit risk and market liquidity account for about 25% and 52% of CP yield spreads, respectively. For comparison, we also examine the drivers of the US CP yield spreads using security-level data. We find that credit risk accounts for a small fraction of the observed yield spreads but liquidity contributes a much greater proportion.

This paper examines the relation between debt structure and investment, by exploiting differences in secured and unsecured debt holdings. In order to address endogeneity concerns, I exploit two sources of exogenous variation for identification. From the firms' side, the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 represents a negative shock to firms' creditworthiness. From the credit market's perspective, the asset-backed commercial paper market collapse of 2007 caused a temporary shortage of unsecured commercial paper. Each of these shocks to debt structure is analyzed combining a difference-in-differences approach with an instrumental variable estimation (Waldinger (2010)), which allows studying i) substitution patterns among debt types and ii) the impact on investment. Results show that greater access to unsecured debt leads to larger investment. When firms face more restricted access to the unsecured debt market, they substitute toward secured debt, and reduce investment. The reason behind this result is that unsecured debt is more cost-effective in terms of spreads and covenants. These findings suggest that collateral is not key to finance investment, as instead has often been claimed in the literature. Creditworthiness rather than collateral is key to access unsecured debt. Additionally, I shed light on how access to the unsecured debt market relates to the balance sheet and credit channels of monetary policy.

The LIBOR manipulation scandal of 2008 spurred extensive policy debates regarding the importance of market-based reference rates. The alternative reference rates committee (ARRC) eventually identified the secured overnight financing rate (SOFR) to be a suitable replacement to LIBOR. In this study, we question the underlying process behind the choice of SOFR as a replacement for LIBOR. Both academic literature and regulatory bodies fail to identify a consistent definition and criteria of a good reference rate. We fill in this gap in the literature by providing an empirically testable ‘checklist’ to evaluate any potential money market rate to gauge its suitability as a reference rate. We also carry out an empirical evaluation of various money market rates against our criteria and identify the 1-month AA non-financial commercial paper rate as the best available replacement for LIBOR.

This paper identifies seasonal firms and their peak seasons to provide empirical evidence of the approach these firms take to finance seasonal operations. The seasonal use of funds, which builds before seasonal revenue, is largely financed with transitory sources of credit, such as credit lines, trade credit, and commercial paper. Permanent financing is used only moderately to meet seasonal needs. However, both weak credit market conditions and firm‐level financial constraints limit the ability of seasonal firms to use debt as transitory financing. These frictions result in a partial shift to permanent financing but reduce the seasonal use of funds overall.

We use computational linguistics to develop a dynamic, interpretable methodology that can detect emerging risks in the financial sector. Our model can predict heightened risk exposures as early as mid-2005, well in advance of the 2008 financial crisis. Risks related to real estate, prepayment, and commercial paper are elevated. Individual bank exposure strongly predicts returns, bank failures, and return volatility. We also document a rise in market instability since 2014 related to sources of funding and mergers and acquisitions. Overall, our model predicts the buildup of emerging risk in the financial system and bank-specific exposures in a timely fashion. Received March 1, 2018; editorial decision November 18, 2018 by Editor Itay Goldstein.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine programs designed to support the commercial paper market during the financial crisis. Design/methodology/approach The paper analyzes the participants in the two programs to determine why domestic financial institutions chose one program over the other. Findings Domestic financial institutions chose the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program over the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF) while foreign financial institutions chose the CPFF. Practical implications The analysis is intended to support future policy debate on how to address a liquidity crisis in the money markets. Originality/value The authors are the first paper to examine the participants in these two programs. The value is the policy implications of this study.

The Main Street Lending Program (Main Street) was one of several new credit facilities launched by the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Federal Reserve published draft terms for Main Street on April 9, 2020, and the program started purchasing loan participations on July 6, 2020, with the goal of supporting lending to a wide range of small and medium-sized businesses that were in sound financial condition before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the program’s draft terms were first circulated, pandemic-related closures were taking hold throughout the economy, firms were sharply drawing down their existing credit lines, and credit market conditions were extremely tight. Against this backdrop, Main Street was intended to support the flow of credit to small and, especially, medium-sized firms and nonprofit organizations, as such entities were often too large to benefit from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and too small to benefit directly from Federal Reserve facilities supporting the corporate bond and commercial paper markets.

Focusing on investments by US money market mutual funds (MMFs) in nonfinancial commercial paper, this study shows that the demand for corporate short-term securities by preferred-habitat investors is positively associated with the use of short-term debt by firms. Consistent results are found when using a longitudinal dataset with a monthly frequency and a firm-quarter panel dataset; instrumenting the demand by MMFs; measuring the demand by MMFs at the level of individual issuers; and exploiting an exogenous change in regulation for identification. These findings support the idea that corporations cater to investors' preferences in choosing their debt maturity structure.

New financial instruments emerge, are tested, appear dead, only to reappear in a more sustainable form. Both commercial paper and high yield bonds are examples as finance evolves with the economy.

In the last decade, complexity economics has emerged as a powerful approach to the understanding of the most relevant factors influencing economic development. The concept of economic complexity has been applied to the study of different economic issues such as economic growth, technological change and inequality. With this work we aim at extending the application of this concept to the study of the financial side of the economy, and, in particular, of the macroeconomic effects of rising financial complexity. In this paper, we present an agent-based model integrating an increasingly complex financial sector with a real side of the economy populated, among other sectors, by heterogeneous households. We test the systemic impact that the increasing complexity of both the financial system and the financial products it manufactures bear on economic growth, macroeconomic stability and inequality. We find mixed results with respect to the positive economic implications the existing literature ascribes to products complexity and deepening production capabilities. Despite higher financial complexity may lead to faster growth, our model suggests that this comes at the cost of heightened financial fragility, a more crisis-prone economic system, and increasing levels of income and wealth inequality. According to these findings, and consistently with pioneering insights from Minsky, we claim that rising complexity does not always entail positive consequences for the well-being of the economy. This is particularly true when it comes to financial innovations and financial complexity.

The value in 2018 of vehicles and equipment for consumer and business customers in Canada financed by the asset-based finance (ABF) industry was an estimated $416 billion. The ABF industry supports a broad network of dealers, manufacturers, distributors, vendors and brokers, and their customers throughout the country. ABF is offered by banks, credit unions, insurance companies, government financial institutions, manufacturer finance companies, and independent finance companies. Several of these entities are regulated with consequent access to existing Bank of Canada programs for emergency lending. This paper focuses on those entities – both regulated and unregulated – that may not have such access, and yet are critical to the functioning of the economy. ABF entities ran into deep trouble during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis and required an emergency liquidity program from the federal government that took months to devise and implement. The primary source of funding of the ABF sector was, and is, the asset-backed commercial paper and securitization markets, often with bank back-up or standby lines, purchased by private pools of investment capital – insurance companies, pension plans, hedge funds, banks and others. The 2008-2009 experience revealed that a complete loss of liquidity could occur within a few weeks, even days. Government was needed to step into the shoes of absent private-sector investors. Given the ABF industry’s relative success and low delinquencies, this Commentary recommends that, during periods of extraordinary financial market turmoil, the federal government activate a large-scale securitization program that would fund ABF intermediaries who finance customers based on real assets. The government would purchase asset-backed securities backed by a pool of assets and their receivables, receiving the same protection and profit that a privatesector investor would receive. Once liquidity is restored and private investor confidence returned, the commercial markets would again resume their normal functioning and government could withdraw its scaled-up temporary emergency funding program. The 2009 Federal Budget established the Canadian Secured Credit Facility, a $12 billion fund administered by The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) to purchase term asset-based securities (ABS) backed by loans and leases on vehicles and equipment. Since then, under successor programs, the BDC has continued to purchase ABS albeit on a smaller scale. With more than 10 years of experience, the BDC understands the policies and rules for such funding. Existing BDC programs could, therefore, be scaled up in a severe downturn, with experienced people in place for effective, prudent and efficient funding. In a profoundly disrupted market, the policy objective should be to restore liquidity to allow the financial services sector to continue offering financing to credit-worthy consumers and businesses in support of the Canadian economy, and that must include the ABF industry.

Evidence of substantial pass†through in short†term rates and other rates of financial and monetary assets has been typically rejected by the data. This paper investigates level and volatility transmissions among the federal funds rate and the user cost of various monetary assets, which include both instruments of public debt (e.g., t†bills) and private debt (e.g., commercial paper). Results suggest substantial and time†varying pass†through. Higher degrees of bidirectional pass†through occur between the federal funds rate to the user costs of more liquid assets—both in levels and volatilities. Federal funds rate spillovers propagate faster onto more liquid rates as well. These findings have important implications for monetary transmission not only across the term structure but along markets of varying liquidity.

This paper empirically examines the determinants of credit at different maturities across European Union countries during the last decade. The paper documents the lengthening of maturities since the early 2000s, and whether these patterns were driven by similar factors in advanced countries and in emerging market countries. Before the 2008 crisis, long-term credit expanded faster than short-term credit in most countries in the sample, and contracted less than short-term credit after 2008. The paper finds that domestic deposits and foreign liabilities were more important sources of funding in emerging market countries than in advanced countries. Moreover, trade openness and initial banking sector depth matter more for emerging market countries than for advanced countries.

Purpose This paper aims to analyze how political brinkmanship impacted Treasury yields during the debt ceiling debate in 2015. The results show that the resignation of the House Speaker John A. Boehner caused a significant decrease in Treasury bill yields of one- and three-month maturities. The authors robust analysis indicates that these lower yields have saved US taxpayers several billion dollars in extra tax expenses. This paper provides evidence that lack of political brinkmanship can be very advantageous for the taxpayers. This has considerable implications for lawmakers in this post-election year. Design/methodology/approach The authors examine the differences in yields between equal maturity short-term Treasury securities and commercial paper using t-tests, non-parametric tests and a robust regression model based on earlier empirical studies. Findings This study provides evidence indicating that between September 25, 2015, and up to October 30, 2015, relatively lower Treasury yields resulted from the lack of political brinkmanship, and this has saved the US taxpayers several billion dollars in interest expenses in 2015. Research limitations/implications The study showed that lower yields will result from a lack of political brinkmanship, and this resulted in savings of several billions of dollars in interest payments. Considering that both the White House and Congress will be controlled by the same political party, this gives lawmakers a unique opportunity to have less acrimonious debt ceiling debates. The limitation of the study is that it does not consider the impact on foreign exchange markets and other factors which could play a major role. Practical/implications Unlike earlier scenarios where default risk increased, followed by credit rating downgrades, there was a quiet confidence this time about a quick resolution. Markets were stable, and this allowed money market participants to invest more confidently even when an upcoming debt ceiling debate is on. Corporations that invested additional cash in money markets for short-term could do it more confidently at that time without fear of default or interest rate risk which could potentially harm the market value of their investments. Practical/implications It implies that there will be lower taxpayer costs because of debt ceilings and avoidance of shutdowns of the federal government. It also implies that there could be more confidence in the dollar. Originality/value Several earlier studies have examined Treasury default caused by political brinkmanship. This is the first study to examine an event where political brinkmanship appeared possible and then suddenly dissipated in a single day. Political brinkmanship is bad news because it increases taxpayer interest burden as seen from several of the studies above. Therefore, it should be considered good news if no disagreement is evident. This argument serves as our motivation for this paper. As an increase in the chances of default causes an increase in the yield of Treasury bills as earlier studies showed, a decrease in the chance of default caused Treasury bill yields to be that much lower based on the results of this study.

Questions have been raised regarding the role of low-tax offshore jurisdictions in the global financial crisis, based largely on evidence that many problematic asset-backed securities were issued from or listed in the Cayman Islands, Jersey, Ireland, and other ‘offshore’ sites. However, there has not been a systematic investigation of the offshore geography of crisis-implicated securitization. Here we fill this gap by constructing the first comprehensive jurisdictional map of the largest pre-crisis Asset-Backed Commercial Paper (ABCP) programmes, and examining the rationale for and impacts of this geography in detail. We show that offshore jurisdictions were disproportionately involved in producing the most unstable ABCP classes. However, this is difficult to explain in terms of the traditional role of offshore banking centres as sites for direct avoidance of onshore regulation and transparency. Rather, we propose a Minskian model of pre-crisis offshore ABCP production, wherein these jurisdictions specialized in alleviating incidental institutional frictions (eg double taxation) hindering onshore financial innovation. In this context, they could sometimes be legitimately described as improving the institutional ‘efficiency’ of financial markets; however, by facilitating the endogenous evolutionary instability of these markets, this apparently innocuous service had profoundly negative effects. This normative disconnect poses a conundrum for offshore reform.

In the August of 2007, banks faced a freeze in funding liquidity from the asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) market. We investigate how banks scrambled for liquidity in response to this freeze and its implications for the real economy. Commercial banks in the United States raised deposits and took advances from Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBs). In contrast, foreign banks – with limited access to the deposit market and FHLB advances – lent less in the overnight interbank market and borrowed more from the Federal Reserve’s Term Auction Facility (TAF) auctions. Relative to banks in the United States, relative to before the ABCP freeze and relative to their non-US dollar lending (difference-in-differences), foreign banks with ABCP exposure charged higher interest rates on syndicated loan packages denominated in dollars. The results point to an important funding risk in global banking, manifesting as currency shortages for banks engaged in maturity transformation in foreign countries.

This paper analyzes information opacity and systemic risk for the U.S. Bank Holding Companies (BHCs) in the context of the asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) between 2001:Q2 and 2012:Q4. Banks which set up costly ABCP conduits might have benefited from the regulatory capital relief and from providing financing alternatives to their clients. However, BHCs faced costs in terms of the increase in information opacity through the provision of the credit enhancements and liquidity lines to their own and third-party sponsored ABCP conduits, which in turn increased BHCs’ systemic risk.

The aim of this article is to present and compare two basic sources of financing of physical investments in the corporate sector, i.e. internal finance and bank finance, and to discuss their determinants. Research methodology – The article presents the review of reference literature and applies the methodology, developed by C. Mayer, that uses the flows of funds instead of their balances, correcting the gross sources of finance by their use in order to estimate a net contribution from banks, equity capital, commercial papers, trade credits, and other instruments to the financing of the corporate sector. Outcome – The outcome of the analysis comprises the conclusions on the use of the sources of internal and bank finance for physical investments in the corporate sector in Poland and in Hungary. Originality/value – The issues discussed in the study and the comparative analysis of the two basic sources of finance in the corporate sectors in Poland and in Hungary contribute to the discussion on the financing of corporate development.

Blockchain provides a secure and reliable guarantee for information transaction. The trading partners share information and benefits, as well as take risks together, which prompts the integration with blockchain. However, the establishment of trust could be the biggest challenge in this integration. In this article, a solution to address the challenge by building a supply chain financial service system based on the league blockchain is proposed. When small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have financing needs, they can get a loan through blockchain system effectively. In the supply chain, with the help of consensus mechanism and encryption technology, the system provides enterprises, banks and regulators with more convenient financing audit and supervision methods, which improves the financing speed of non-core enterprises. At the same time, the system makes the financing process transparent, safe and traceable. On the one hand, this system changes the way information is stored from SMEs’ respective systems to the blockchain. On the other hand, regulators can supervise SMEs’ actual use of loan funds effectively. This, to some extent, has greatly solved the financing difficulties of SMEs.

In this paper, we identify three exogenous shocks to credit market: demand for credit, supply of funds into the financial system, and the willingness to lend of financial institutions (financial intermediation), and also, determine the contribution of these shocks to fluctuations in the credit market and overall economic activity. We estimate a structural vector autoregression model where the three credit shocks are identified with a set of sign restrictions motivated by a simple partial equilibrium model of financial intermediation. We find that the credit demand shock explains significantly the variations in the long-term loan rate proxied by the Moody’s Baa corporate bond yield, while the supply of funds shock contributes to most of the fluctuations in the short-term commercial paper rate. The financial intermediation shock drives most of the fluctuations in the quantity of loans as well as the spread between the Baa and commercial paper rates. Of the credit shocks, we find that the financial intermediation shock has the largest impact on real economic activity. In fact, our analysis implies that the sharp decline in output during the 2007–2009 financial crisis is largely attributable to the financial intermediation shock, along with shocks originating outside of the financial system.

Bond rating and the establishment of formal CRAs began in 1909 when John Moody began rating US railroad bonds, soon expanding to utility and industrial bonds. Poor’s Publishing Company followed in 1916 and Fitch Publishing Company in 1924. The business was characterised by the investor-pays model, where investors bought reports from the CRAs containing their ratings. This changed in 1970, for two reasons. First, with the advent of the photocopier free-riding became commonplace and CRAs found it difficult to sustain their business (White, 2002). Second, in 1970 Penn Central defaulted on its commercial paper obligations, creating vast mistrust among investors and a large demand by issuers for certification. The business thus changed to an issuers-pay model (Cantor and Packer, 1995). In 1975, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) created the Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO) category to designate credit ratings agencies whose ratings were recognised as being valuable for investment decisions. Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch were given this designation immediately, and four other firms attained it in the following 17 years. By 2000, however, mergers returned the number of NRSROs to the big three. The SEC gave out a fourth NRSRO designation in 2003 (Dominion), a fifth in 2005 (A.M. Best), and in response to congressional legislation promoting transparency and entry in 2006 gave out three more designations (White, 2010). All of these new NRSROs, however, remain very small players in the bond and structured finance businesses.

In August 1763, northern Europe experienced a financial crisis with numerous parallels to the 2008 Lehman Brothers episode. The 1763 crisis was sparked by the failure of a major provider of acceptance loans, a form of securitized credit resembling modern asset-backed commercial paper. The central bank at the hub of the crisis, the Bank of Amsterdam, responded by broadening the range of acceptable collateral for its repo transactions. Analysis of archival data shows that this emergency source of liquidity helped to contain the effects of the crisis, by preventing the collapse of at least two other major securitizers. While the underlying themes seem to have changed little in 250 years, the modest scope of the 1763 liquidity intervention, together with the lightly regulated nature of the eighteenth century financial landscape, provide some informative contrasts with events of late 2008.

We analyze why firms use nonintermediated short-term debt by studying the commercial paper (CP) market. Using a comprehensive database of CP issuers and issuance activity, we show that firms use CP to provide start-up financing for capital investment. Firms� CP issuance is driven by a desire to minimize transaction costs associated with raising capital for new investment. We show that firms with high rollover risk are less likely to enter the CP market, borrow less CP, and borrow more from bank credit lines. Further, CP is often refinanced with long-term bond issuance to reduce rollover risk.

Many explanations for the rapid growth of the shadow banking system in the mid2000s focus on money demand. This paper asks whether the short-term liabilities of the shadow banking system behave like money. We …rst present a simple model where households demand money services, which are supplied by three types of claims: deposits, Treasury bills, and asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP). The model provides predictions for the price and quantity dynamics of these claims, as well as the behavior of the banking system (in terms of issuance) and the monetary authority (in terms of open market operations). Consistent with the model, the empirical evidence suggests that the shadow banking system does respond to money demand.

This chapter focuses on municipal bonds, municipal notes, bond ratings, their implication for debt management, and the bond ratings process. Municipal bonds represent debt from a broad category of issuers, such as cities, counties, parishes, towns, boroughs, villages, and special districts. As of 1993, there were over one million municipal bonds, which make up the vast majority of a US municipal finance market valued at over $one trillion. The bonds fall into three broad categories: general obligation bonds, limited obligation bonds, and industrial development bonds. In conjunction with the municipal bond market are the municipal note and commercial paper markets. While the bond market is centered on long-term issues, the note and commercial paper markets represent short-term securities. With respect to financial analysis, bond rating agencies seem to view debt as a percentage of assessed property value as a measure of municipal "leverage".

Do claims on the private sector serve the role of safe assets? We answer this question using high-frequency panel data on prices and quantities of certificates of deposit (CD) and commercial paper (CP) issued in Europe. We show that only very short-term private securities benefit from a premium for safety. Using several identification strategies, we show that the issuance of short-term CDs, but not of CPs, strongly responds to measures of safety demand. The private production of safe assets is stronger for issuers with high credit worthiness, and breaks down during episodes of market stress. We conclude that even very short-term private assets are sensitive to changes in the information environment and should not be treated as equally safe at all times.

To understand which short-term debt markets experienced �runs� during the financial crisis, we analyze a novel data set of repurchase agreements (repo), that is, loans between nonbank cash lenders and dealer banks collateralized with securities. Consistent with a run, repo volume backed by private asset-backed securities falls to near zero in the crisis. However, the reduction is only $182 billion, which is small relative to the stock of private asset-backed securities as well as the contraction in asset-backed commercial paper. While the repo contraction is small in aggregate, it disproportionately affected a few dealer banks.

The study examines the impact of the partial U.S. government shutdown of October 2013 on the yields of Treasury bills. The authors find that there was a significant impact on the yields of four-week Treasury bills as compared with high-quality commercial paper. They do not find a similar impact on the yields of Treasury bills of three-month maturity. The analysis is based on the results of t-tests, regressions, and nonparametric tests, and the results are robust across the methodologies. The study has important implications for academics, market participants, and lawmakers.

We use the 2007 asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) crisis as a laboratory to study the determinants of debt runs. Our model features dilution risk: maturing short-term lenders demand higher yields in compensation for being diluted by future lenders, making runs more likely. The model explains the observed tenfold increase in yield spreads leading to runs and the positive relation between yield spreads and future runs. Results from structural estimation show that runs are very sensitive to leverage, asset values, and asset liquidity, but less sensitive to the degree of maturity mismatch, the strength of guarantees, and asset volatility.

In this panel, the speakers described certain aspects of the historical growth and decline of the asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) market. In addition, they addressed how that history has led to new regulations that challenge ABCP sponsors, and how some sponsors are meeting those challenges head on. The panel concluded with a modest but optimistic outlook for the future growth of ABCP as a result of a return to the core-value proposition of ABCP conduits for financing the real economy. The regulatory reaction to the credit crisis has been a tidal wave of regulation nominally intended to prevent another credit crisis and resulting in both intended and unintended consequences. The new rules do not differentiate between an arbitrage-based structured investment vehicles (SIVs) and ABCP conduits that provide liquidity to corporations. Managers of ABCP conduits are responding with innovations that address the rules head on while still preserving the economic benefits of securitization for their clients.

On December 10, 2013, the Federal financial agencies issued the joint final regulation implementing Section 619 of the Dodd–Frank Act, commonly known as the “Volcker Rule.” This article addresses the impact of the final regulation on securitization activities and therefore focuses on the prohibition on covered funds activities and certain of the exceptions thereto. The final regulation provides for 14 separate exclusions from the definition of covered funds, including the loan securitization, qualifying asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP), qualifying covered bond, and wholly-owned subsidiary exclusions. Although securitization transactions generally do not utilize entities that would be regarded as private equity funds or hedge funds and the statutory text of the Volcker Rule expressly required that the final regulation not prohibit the securitization of loans, the final regulation will impact certain securitizations in a material way due to the breadth of the definition of covered funds.

As required by the Dodd-Frank Act, the Federal Reserve Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other federal regulators are moving forward with plans to require risk retention in most securitizations and are likely to approve final risk retention rules in early 2014. Although in developing the rules the regulators have endeavored to take into account the unique features of different securitization markets, the retention rules that those regulators have proposed for asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) conduits fail to recognize the substantial differences that exist between ABCP programs and other securitization structures. The proposed rules would impose operating restrictions and disclosure obligations on ABCP conduits and their sponsors that could have a significant adverse impact on the ABCP market. In particular, those rules would require conduit sponsors to retain horizontal or vertical credit risk in their conduits or to comply with a narrow safe harbor that would (among other issues) limit the categories of assets that the conduits could finance. This article describes the risk retention rules that the regulators have proposed for ABCP conduits and discusses the compliance options available to conduit sponsors and the practical difficulties that each option would create.

We consider the liquidity shock banks experienced following the collapse of the asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) market in the fall of 2007 to investigate whether banks' liquidity conditions affect their ability to provide liquidity to corporations. We find that banks that borrowed more from the Federal Home Loan Bank system or the Federal Reserve's discount window following that liquidity shock passed a larger portion of their borrowing costs onto corporations seeking access to liquidity when compared to the precrisis period. This increase is larger among banks with a bigger exposure to the ABCP market, credit lines that pose more liquidity risk to banks, and borrowers that are likely dependent on the credit-line provider. Our findings show that the crisis that affected the banking system had a negative effect not only on the price of credit to corporations, but also on the price corporations pay to guarantee access to liquidity.

This paper analyzes how risk premiums altered the use of commercial paper relative to bank loans during the recent financial crisis. Consistent with the theoretical and empirical literature on how surges in risk premiums can induce plunges in under-collateralized credit or credit funded with noninsured sources, results indicate that a spike in risk premiums induced a plunge in commercial paper use during the recent crisis. This paper also finds that Federal Reserve interventions in the money market helped prevent the commercial paper market from melting down to the extent seen during the early 1930s.

Purpose– This paper aims to examine how issue spreads are determined in the New Zealand commercial paper market both before and after the onset of the global financial crisis.Design/methodology/approach– This paper uses regression analysis on data from 1,340 commercial paper tenders conducted by 26 issuers between mid-2003 and mid-2011 to explore how credit risk and liquidity factors impact on issue spreads.Findings– Prior to March 2008, issue spreads are higher when issuers have a weaker credit rating, risk aversion is high and investor appetite for the issue is low. There is no term premium in issue spreads. After March 2008, credit ratings have no influence on issue spreads, while the influence of risk aversion is weaker. Issue spreads are more sensitive to the investor appetite and the term of the issue. Investors assign higher spreads to issues made by securitisation conduits despite these entities retaining the highest possible short-term credit rating, reflecting the erosion of confidence in credit ratings on asset-backed securities.Originality/value– This is the first published study of the New Zealand commercial paper market. The results show that since the onset of the global financial crisis, investor perceptions of credit risk have played a more important role in the determination of issue spreads than short-term credit ratings. This is consistent with a loss of confidence in credit ratings on asset-backed securities.

U.S. money market yields up to one month have shown changes consistent with year-end liquidity preferences. I find that three- and six-month negotiable certificate of deposit (CD), Eurodollar deposit (ED), and banker's acceptance (BA) yields are also affected by year-end liquidity preferences. Two- and three-month financial commercial paper (CP) yield changes are less pronounced. Banks—CD, ED, and BA issuers—have increased year-end liquidity needs, unlike finance companies—predominant CP issuers. The year-end effect disappears after the 2007–2008 crisis as depositories' cash holdings increase. CD, ED, and CP yields diverge postcrisis, suggesting that investors no longer consider them close substitutes.

The Federal Reserve’s AMLF program was designed to provide liquidity to money market funds (MMFs). Between September 2008 and May 2009, the program made $217 billion in non-recourse loans to depository institutions and bank holding companies to purchase asset-backed commercial paper from MMFs. JP Morgan and State Street dominated the program, accounting for over 90% of all loans made. Our analysis suggests that JP Morgan exhibited more self-dealing behavior than State Street. We find that JP Morgan and State Street earned economically and statistically significant cumulative returns of 2.28% and 2.49% (respectively) over the first seven days of the program after controlling for market returns and heteroscedasticity.

Consistent with theories of financial frictions, this study finds that higher corporate risk premia and flight-to-quality events contributed to the increased use of a collateralized form of business lending (bankers acceptances) in real levels and relative to that of noncollateralized commercial paper (which plunged) during the Great Depression. These short-lived instruments are more timely measures of credit availability than are bank/business failures and bank loan outstandings. These shifts in the composition of external finance were large, supporting the view that financial frictions rose and credit availability fell during the Great Depression.

We analyze asset-backed commercial paper conduits, which experienced a shadow-banking run and played a central role in the early phase of the financial crisis of 2007–2009. We document that commercial banks set up conduits to securitize assets worth $1.3 trillion while insuring the newly securitized assets using explicit guarantees. We show that regulatory arbitrage was an important motive behind setting up conduits. In particular, the guarantees were structured so as to reduce regulatory capital requirements, more so by banks with less capital, and while still providing recourse to bank balance sheets for outside investors. Consistent with such recourse, we find that conduits provided little risk transfer during the run, as losses from conduits remained with banks instead of outside investors and banks with more exposure to conduits had lower stock returns.

One of the most significant challenges facing banks participating in the securitization markets is the impact that more-stringent capital and liquidity requirements proposed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision may have on the cost to these institutions and their customers of participating in these markets in the future. Additional requirements imposed by the so-called Basel 2.5 and Basel III proposals will substantially affect the incentives of banks to securitize their own assets and to invest in securitizations. In June 2012, the U.S. banking regulators proposed their version of the Basel III capital rules. The U.S. regulators have not yet proposed their version of the Basel III liquidity requirements, which if adopted in the form proposed by the Basel Committee would greatly increase the costs to banks of providing credit and liquidity facilities to securitization structures, including asset-backed commercial paper conduits. This presentation, an explanation of regulatory capital and liquidity requirements for securitizations, outlines the most significant aspects of these proposals that affect securitizations and some of the key industry concerns with these proposals.

On September 16, 2008, just a day after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection, the Reserve Primary Fund money market mutual fund (MMMF) “broke the bank,” announcing a net asset value of less than $1 per share because of a large exposure to Lehman Brothers commercial paper (CP). As a result, the CP markets came under considerable pressure as other MMMFs began to experience run-like redemption requests and became reluctant to hold CP. The difficulties in the CP market lead to a severe shortening of maturities and increased rates that threatened to freeze these lending channels, which were widely used by financial and nonfinancial companies of all sizes to fund operating expenses and loans to small businesses and consumers. On October 7, 2008, the Federal Reserve (the Fed) intervened announcing the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF), which would backstop the CP market. Through the CPFF the Federal Reserve Bank of New York funded the indirect purchase of CP from issuers. The CPFF was highly utilized and at its early stages purchased the overwhelming majority of new term CP being issued. At its highest level it held $350 billion of CP, 20 percent of all outstanding CP. As markets improved, utilization of the CPFF waned and it expired on February 1, 2010, having helped to stabilize the CP markets.

The basic features of financial intermediation—asymmetric information and liquidity transformation—have not changed along history. In an intermediated financial system, the asymmetric information between investors and intermediaries can cause withdrawals of capital even in the presence of good investments. It is the combination of asymmetric information and illiquidity that gives rise to the possibility of a banking crisis, a situation whereby all depositors want their cash back. A securities-based financial system has the same attributes as the classic banking business model. Providing liquidity in securities markets by buying relatively illiquid securities and selling more liquid securities is the same risky activity as banking. Therefore, a security crisis is associated with an increase in demand for liquidity or more liquid securities. This puts strain on the balance sheets of those intermediaries who provide liquidity in securities markets: their assets fall in value, including sovereign bonds of troubled countries, and their liabilities increase in value. To restore their own financial equilibrium, those intermediaries sell their assets in a situation where buyers are relatively fewer. Securities prices fall further, and this causes the “panic”, the “flight to quality”, the “run”, or whatever one chooses to call it. Short-term credit dries up, including the normally straightforward repurchase agreement (“the run on repo”), interbank lending, and commercial paper markets. This panic is usually followed by a very sharp recession. The chapter also deals with the argument if financial crises are predictable by the usual economic models, or they are rare unpredictable phenomena (Black Swans), and finally the extension of the global crisis to the European sovereign debt and banking sector is shortly analyzed.