Are banks still 'too big to fail'? - A market perspective

October 19, 2021
Issue 2021-18

Summary

This paper aims at deriving the market's assessment as to whether banks worldwide still benefit from a Too Big To Fail (TBTF) subsidy. Such a subsidy reflects the market's expectation of government support in the event of a crisis and results in reduced funding costs for the benefiting bank. To capture this effect, we use two different extensions of the Merton (1974) framework. We find that large banks benefit from a TBTF subsidy, while large nonfinancial firms do not. This subsidy has declined somewhat since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) but remains larger than before the crisis. These conclusions also hold when considering Contingent Convertible (CoCos) and bail-in bonds as fully loss-absorbing. Moreover, we find differences in the TBTF subsidy across jurisdictions and provide evidence that these can to a large extent be explained by differences in bank health.

Download file now

The file can be downloaded with the button below.

Issue:
18
Pages:
36
JEL classification:
G12, G18, G21
Keywords:
Banking, too big to fail, CreditEdge, CreditGrades
Year:
2021

Additional files

Related content

Author(s)

  • Dr. Nicole Allenspach

  • Oleg Reichmann

  • Javier Rodriguez-Martin

Your settings

Required: These cookies (e.g. for storing your IP address) cannot be rejected as they are necessary to ensure the operation of the website. These data are not evaluated further.
Analytics: If you consent to this category, data such as IP address, location, device information, browser version and site visitor behaviour will be collected. These data are evaluated for the SNB's internal purposes and are kept for two years.
Third-party: If you consent to this category, third-party services (used, for example, to add social multimedia content to the SNB's website) will be activated which collect personal data, process these data, disclose them abroad - worldwide - and place cookies. The relevant data protection regulations are linked in the 'Privacy statement for the website of the Swiss National Bank'.

Choose your preferred settings:

This website uses cookies, analytics tools and other technologies to provide requested features, content and services, to personalise the content shown, to provide links to social media, and to analyse the use of the website in anonymised form for the purposes of improving usability. Personal data are also disclosed abroad - worldwide - to video service providers and the analytics tools of these providers are used. More information is available under 'Manage settings'.