Monitoring Leverage

19 Pages Posted: 2 Dec 2011

See all articles by John Geanakoplos

John Geanakoplos

Yale University; Santa Fe Institute

Lasse Heje Pedersen

AQR Capital Management, LLC; Copenhagen Business School - Department of Finance; New York University (NYU); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Date Written: November 1, 2011

Abstract

We discuss how leverage can be monitored for institutions, individuals, and assets. While traditionally the interest rate has been regarded as the important feature of a loan, we argue that leverage is sometimes even more important. Monitoring leverage provides information about how risk builds up during booms as leverage rises and how crises start when leverage on new loans sharply declines. Leverage data is also a crucial input for crisis management and lending facilities. Leverage at the asset level can be monitored by down payments or margin requirement or and haircuts, giving a model-free measure that can be observed directly, in contrast to other measures of systemic risk that require complex estimation. Asset leverage is a fundamental measure of systemic risk and so is important in itself, but it is also the building block out of which measures of institutional leverage and household leverage can be most accurately and informatively constructed.

Keywords: Leverage, Loan to value, Margins, Haircuts, Monitor, Regulate, Leverage on new loans, Asset leverage, Investor leverage

JEL Classification: D52, D53, E44, G01, G10, G12

Suggested Citation

Geanakoplos, John D and Pedersen, Lasse Heje, Monitoring Leverage (November 1, 2011). Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper No. 1838, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1967173 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1967173

John D Geanakoplos (Contact Author)

Yale University ( email )

30 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511
United States
203-432-3397 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://https://economics.yale.edu/people/faculty/john-geanakoplos

Santa Fe Institute ( email )

1399 Hyde Park Road
Santa Fe, NM 87501
United States

Lasse Heje Pedersen

AQR Capital Management, LLC ( email )

Greenwich, CT
United States

Copenhagen Business School - Department of Finance ( email )

Solbjerg Plads 3
Frederiksberg, DK-2000
Denmark

New York University (NYU) ( email )

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

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

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