Center for Financial Stability

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Issues

CFS believes that practical policy-oriented research will foster development of a stronger and more stable financial system. CFS targets investigations on:

Sovereign Debt

Sovereign Debt
Governments around the world have instituted expansionary fiscal policies over the last several years. A clear understanding of the public debt burden is crucial for economic growth, financial market prospects, and the risk of future financial crises.

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Emerging Risks

Emerging Risks
Today, risks and vulnerabilities are more complex than ever. Candid and unbiased assessment from independent experts across financial markets, macroeconomics, and geopolitics is essential to optimize private sector performance and public policy.

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Money Markets and Derivatives

Money Markets and Derivatives
While derivatives and repo contracts have the potential to make the financial system more stable, they are often accused of doing exactly the opposite. How can the design, organization, legal context, and regulation of these markets be changed to allow derivatives and repo contracts to fulfill their potential rather than contribute to systemic risk?

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Bank Capital and Liquidity Rules

Bank Capital and Liquidity Rules
A central lesson of the recent crisis is that banks worldwide lacked sufficient, high quality capital to absorb large unexpected losses. Even well-capitalized banks found themselves at risk when market turmoil disrupted their traditional sources of funding. Officials and regulators have outlined a range of proposals to strengthen bank capital and liquidity. The CFS will evaluate many of these new proposals, in our own research and through expert discussions in the Policy Forum. The focus will be on whether the proposed changes are likely to reduce risks in the future, and the implications of these changes for the provision of financial services in the future.

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Regulating Large Banks

Regulating Large Financial Institutions
The recent crisis highlighted a new phenomenon: financial institutions that are deemed "too big, too systemically important or too complex to fail." These required massive official support at great public expense. Officials and regulators are committed to reining in these institutions through a range of actions. The CFS explores the diverse proposals for fundamental change in the supervision and permitted activities of systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs). Some proposals may alter the structure of the financial system itself, creating new challenges to tracking financial flows and to monitoring the future sources of risk in the system.

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