A Model of Shadow Banking

Nicola Gennaioli, Andrei Shleifer, Robert W. Vishny

NBER Working Paper No. 17115
Issued in June 2011
NBER Program(s):Asset Pricing, Corporate Finance

We present a model of shadow banking in which financial intermediaries originate and trade loans, assemble these loans into diversified portfolios, and then finance these portfolios externally with riskless debt. In this model: i) outside investor wealth drives the demand for riskless debt and indirectly for securitization, ii) intermediary assets and leverage move together as in Adrian and Shin (2010), and iii) intermediaries increase their exposure to systematic risk as they reduce their idiosyncratic risk through diversification, as in Acharya, Schnabl, and Suarez (2010). Under rational expectations, the shadow banking system is stable and improves welfare. When investors and intermediaries neglect tail risks, however, the expansion of risky lending and the concentration of risks in the intermediaries create financial fragility and fluctuations in liquidity over time.

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w17115

Published: Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 2013. "A Model of Shadow Banking," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(4), pages 1331-1363, 08. citation courtesy of