Securitization Without Risk Transfer

51 Pages Posted: 22 Mar 2009 Last revised: 25 Feb 2012

See all articles by Viral V. Acharya

Viral V. Acharya

New York University (NYU) - Leonard N. Stern School of Business; New York University (NYU) - Department of Finance; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Philipp Schnabl

New York University (NYU) - Department of Finance; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Gustavo Suarez

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: October 20, 2011

Abstract

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 2007-09. 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 the main motive behind setting up conduits: 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': losses from conduits remained with banks rather than outside investors and banks with more exposure to conduits had lower stock returns.

Keywords: Asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP), shadow banking, regulatory arbitrage, bank capital, conduits, Structured investment vehicle

JEL Classification: G01, G21, G28

Suggested Citation

Acharya, Viral V. and Acharya, Viral V. and Schnabl, Philipp and Suarez, Gustavo, Securitization Without Risk Transfer (October 20, 2011). AFA 2010 Atlanta Meetings Paper, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1364525 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1364525

Viral V. Acharya

New York University (NYU) - Leonard N. Stern School of Business ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~vacharya

New York University (NYU) - Department of Finance ( email )

Stern School of Business
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Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

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Philipp Schnabl (Contact Author)

New York University (NYU) - Department of Finance ( email )

Stern School of Business
44 West 4th Street
New York, NY 10012-1126
United States

HOME PAGE: http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~sternfin/pschnabl/

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

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Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

Gustavo Suarez

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ( email )

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Washington, DC 20551
United States