Neglected Risks, Financial Innovation, and Financial Fragility
Neglected Risks, Financial Innovation, and Financial Fragility The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Gennaioli, Nicola, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert W. Vishny. 2012. Neglected risks, financial innovation and financial fragility. Journal of Financial Economics 104(3): 452-468. Published Version dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2011.05.005 Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:10886835 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Open Access Policy Articles, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#OAP Neglected risks, financial innovation, and financial fragility Nicola Gennaioli, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert Vishny* Final Draft, May 2011 Abstract We present a standard model of financial innovation, in which intermediaries engineer securities with cash flows that investors seek, but modify two assumptions. First, investors (and possibly intermediaries) neglect certain unlikely risks. Second, investors demand securities with safe cash flows. Financial intermediaries cater to these preferences and beliefs by engineering securities perceived to be safe but exposed to neglected risks. Because the risks are neglected, security issuance is excessive. As investors eventually recognize these risks, they fly back to the safety of traditional securities and markets become fragile, even without leverage, precisely because the volume of new claims is excessive. JEL Codes: E44, G01, G21, G32 Keywords: banks, local thinking, crisis * We are grateful to Pedro Bordalo, Robin Greenwood, Sam Hanson, Anil Kashyap, Brock Mendel, Vladimir Mukharlyamov, Adriano Rampini, Michael Rashes, Joshua Schwartzstein, Jeremy Stein, seminar participants at the Harvard Business School, National Bureau of Economic Research, Stern School, and Chicago Booth, as well as the editor and two referees for helpful comments.
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