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ECONOMIC REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT

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Box 6-4: Have We Ended “Too-Big-To-Fail”?<br />

A financial institution that is “too-big-to-fail” (TBTF) is so large<br />

and interconnected with the financial system that market participants<br />

believe the government will intervene to prevent its failure. One of the<br />

goals of recent financial reform is to eliminate TBTF by making systemically<br />

risky banks less likely to fail, reducing the government’s ability to<br />

aid insolvent firms, and reducing the damage a failure would cause so<br />

that such firms could be allowed to fail. Major credit rating agencies<br />

have cited financial reform and the reduced likelihood of a government<br />

bailout when downgrading the credit ratings of major U.S. banks. For<br />

example, in November 2013, Moody’s lowered the so-called government<br />

support component of its credit ratings for global systemically important<br />

banks. In December 2015, the credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s<br />

downgraded eight of the largest U.S. banks by a notch, saying it believes<br />

the banks are less likely to receive a government bailout if they find<br />

themselves in financial trouble. While ratings are not necessarily reflective<br />

of general market expectations, these actions suggest that financial<br />

reform has been successful in reducing TBTF.<br />

A widely studied measure of TBTF is whether certain institutions<br />

are able to borrow more cheaply because of the perception that they will<br />

ultimately be bailed out if they fail. It was clear that many large financial<br />

firms were able to borrow more cheaply both shortly before and during<br />

the Financial Crisis because market participants did not believe that such<br />

institutions would be allowed to fail. Several more recent estimates of this<br />

funding advantage find it to be much reduced or eliminated. Although<br />

financial reforms have likely had an impact on TBTF, the improved macroeconomic<br />

atmosphere may make any existing funding advantage very<br />

difficult to detect, so a definitive measure of whether the TBTF advantage<br />

still exists may not be apparent until another crisis appears.<br />

The costs of TBTF go beyond the direct costs of bail-outs. TBTF<br />

creates incentives that many consider socially harmful. Investors are<br />

willing to provide their funds to a TBTF bank without evaluating the<br />

safety and soundness of their investment because they believe that the<br />

government will bail them out should the bank get into trouble. This<br />

allows managers to engage in risky investment behavior, with the bank<br />

keeping the gains should those investments pay off but with taxpayers<br />

bearing the loss in the event of a near failure. These institutions also<br />

enjoy a TBTF discount on their funding costs, allowing them to borrow<br />

at lower interest rates than similar institutions that are not considered by<br />

investors to be TBTF. This discount is anticompetitive as it gives large<br />

or more systemically connected firms an advantage over smaller or new<br />

institutions.<br />

394 | Chapter 6

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