The Safe-Asset Share
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NBER Working Paper No. 17777
Issued in January 2012
NBER Program(s):Asset Pricing, Corporate Finance, Monetary Economics
We document that the percentage of all U.S. assets that are "safe" has remained stable at about 33 percent since 1952. This stable ratio is a rare example of calm in a rapidly changing financial world. Over the same time period, the ratio of U.S. assets to GDP has increased by a factor of 2.5, and the main supplier of safe financial debt has shifted from commercial banks to the "shadow banking system." We analyze this pattern of stylized facts and offer some tentative conclusions about the composition of the safe-asset share and its role within the overall economy.
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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w17777
Published: Gary Gorton & Stefan Lewellen & Andrew Metrick, 2012. "The Safe-Asset Share," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 101-06, May. citation courtesy of 