2011年-IMF国际货币组织全球_Institutional_Cash_Pools_and_the_Triffin_Dilemma_of_the_US_Banking_System_36页_1mb

Summary of "Institutional Cash Pools and the Triffin Dilemma of the U.S. Banking System"

Core Content

This paper explores the rise of the "shadow" banking system from a demand-side perspective, focusing on the behavior and preferences of institutional cash pools—large, centrally managed short-term cash balances held by non-financial corporations and institutional investors such as asset managers, securities lenders, and pension funds. It argues that the growth of institutional cash pools has driven demand for safe, liquid, short-term assets, which in turn has fueled the expansion of the shadow banking system.

Main Viewpoints

• Institutional cash pools prefer principal safety and liquidity over yield, leading them to avoid unsecured bank deposits.
• The shortage of short-term government-guaranteed instruments (like Treasury bills and agency securities) relative to the growing size of institutional cash pools has pushed demand toward the shadow banking system.
• The Triffin dilemma applies to the U.S. banking system, where the demand for safe assets by institutional cash pools has created a maturity transformation gap, increasing systemic risk.
• The rise of institutional cash pools has been driven by three secular trends: globalization, growth of asset management, and derivatives-based investment strategies.
• The supply of safe assets has not kept pace with demand, leading to the secular rise of shadow banking.

Key Information

Institutional Cash Pools Overview

• These pools are large (typically at least $1 billion in size) and centrally managed.
• They are not held in traditional bank deposits but in safe, short-term, and liquid alternatives.
• The volume of institutional cash pools grew from $100 billion in 1990 to $2.2 trillion in 2007, and $1.9 trillion in 2010.
• The paper estimates that the true volume could be as high as $3.8 trillion in 2007 and $3.4 trillion in 2010 when considering additional sources not included in the official data.

Investment Preferences

• Institutional cash pools prioritize safety (67–80%), followed by liquidity (14–25%), and yield (1–16%).
• They avoid direct unsecured exposure to banks, even through insured deposits.
• They prefer short-term government-guaranteed instruments (e.g., Treasury bills) but find them insufficient in supply.
• They invest in privately guaranteed instruments (e.g., repurchase agreements, asset-backed commercial paper) due to the shortfall in government-guaranteed instruments.

Supply Constraints

• The number of FDIC-insured banks has declined from 15,000 to 8,000 between 1990 and 2010.
• The top ten banks now hold over 55% of system assets, reducing counterparty diversification options.
• Deposit insurance limits have remained at $100,000 since 1980, limiting the ability of institutional cash pools to spread their funds across multiple banks.
• Foreign official holdings of short-term government-guaranteed instruments have increased, further exacerbating the supply deficit.

Shadow Banking System

• The shadow banking system emerged as a response to the supply gap in safe, short-term assets.
• It provides insured deposit alternatives to institutional cash pools, including secured instruments and prime money funds.
• The growth of shadow banking is not merely a supply-side phenomenon but also a demand-side one, driven by institutional cash pool behavior.

Policy Implications

• The effectiveness of deposit insurance and lender of last resort mechanisms has declined due to the increasing demand for safe assets.
• A macroprudential solution is to increase the supply of Treasury bills and explicitly manage their issuance.
• This approach is less complex than intensive real-time monitoring and regulation of shadow banking.
• The paper renames the shadow banking system as the market-based financial system, suggesting it is not a shadow system but a necessary extension of the traditional financial system to meet institutional demand.

Conclusion

• Institutional cash pools dominate the demand for safe, short-term assets.
• The Triffin dilemma is revisited in the context of institutional cash pools, where the demand for safe assets exceeds the supply provided by the official banking system.
• The systemic risks from this demand are systemic and require macroprudential policy tools, such as Treasury bill supply management, to mitigate.

Key Figures

• Figure 1 shows the secular rise of institutional cash pools from 1990 to 2010.
• Figure 2 illustrates the average size of institutional cash pools in 2007.
• Figure 3 ranks the investment priorities of institutional cash pools.
• Figure 4 highlights the insufficiency of banks to provide safety for cash pools.
• Figure 5 demonstrates the deficit in short-term government-guaranteed instruments.
• Figure 6 shows the allocation of short-term investments among institutional cash pools.
• Figure 7 provides a visual summary of the portfolio composition of institutional cash pools.

References

• Acharya and Schnabl (2009)
• Caballero (2010)
• Bernanke (2011)
• Gorton (2010)
• Stein (2010)
• Krishnamurthy and Vissing-Jorgensen (2010)
• Pozsar (2011)
• Pozsar and Singh (2011, forthcoming)
• Pozsar, et al (2010)
• Stulz, et al (1998)
• Holmström and Tirole (2000)
• Singh (2011b)
• TIC, SIFMA, CapitalIQ, RMA, ICI, BIS

Appendix Figures

• A1–A4: Additional data on institutional cash pools.
• A5: Corporate cash and cash equivalents as a share of assets.
• A6–A7: Institutional cash pools associated with corporations and mutual funds.
• A8–A9: Changes in the number of FDIC-insured banks and their share of system assets.
• A10: Yield differences between short-term instruments and CDs.

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the demand-side dynamics behind the rise of institutional cash pools and the shadow banking system, emphasizing the systemic implications and the need for policy adaptation.