David S. Scharfstein

This paper examines the effect of pension policy on the structure of financial systems around the world. In particular, I explore the hypothesis that policies that promote pension savings also promote the development of capital markets. I present a model that endogenizes the extent to which savings are intermediated through banks or capital markets, and derive implications for corporate finance, household finance, banking, and the size of the financial sector. I then present a number of facts that are broadly consistent with the theory and examine a variety of alternative explanations of my findings.

U.S. money market mutual funds (MMFs) are an important source of dollar funding for global financial institutions, particularly those headquartered outside the U.S.  MMFs proved to be a source of considerable instability during the financial crisis of 2007–2009, resulting in extraordinary government support to help stabilize the funding of global financial institutions.  In light of the problems that emerged during the crisis, a number of MMF reforms have been proposed, which we analyze in this paper.  We assume that the main goal of MMF reform is safeguarding global financial stability. In light of this goal, reforms should reduce the ex ante incentives for MMFs to take excessive risk and increase the ex post resilience of MMFs to system-wide runs.  Our analysis suggests that requiring MMFs to have subordinated capital buffers could generate significant financial stability benefits.  Subordinated capital provides MMFs with loss absorption capacity, lowering the probability than an MMF suffers losses large enough to trigger a run, and reduces incentives to take excessive risks.  Other reform alternatives based on market forces, such as converting MMFs to a floating NAV, may be less effective in protecting financial stability.  Our analysis sheds light on the fundamental tensions inherent in regulating the shadow banking system.

A large share of dollar-denominated lending is done by non-U.S. banks, particularly European banks. We present a model in which such banks cut dollar lending more than euro lending in response to a shock to their credit quality. Because these banks rely on wholesale dollar funding, while raising more of their euro funding through insured retail deposits, the shock leads to a greater withdrawal of dollar funding. Banks can borrow in euros and swap into dollars to make up for the dollar shortfall, but this may lead to violations of covered interest parity (CIP) when there is limited capital to take the other side of the swap trade. In this case, synthetic dollar borrowing becomes expensive, which causes cuts in dollar lending. We test the model in the context of the Eurozone sovereign crisis, which escalated in the second half of 2011 and resulted in U.S. money-market funds sharply reducing the funding provided to European banks. Coincident with the contraction in dollar funding, there were significant violations of euro-dollar CIP. Moreover, dollar lending by Eurozone banks fell relative to their euro lending in both the U.S. and Europe; this was not the case for U.S. global banks. Finally, European banks that were more reliant on money funds experienced bigger declines in dollar lending.

Banking, financial distress, risk management, corporate investment, private equity.