Authors:

  • Andrei Shleifer

Excerpt

Fire Sales in Finance and Macroeconomics. Andrei Shleifer, Winter 2011, Paper. "Analysts of the recent financial crisis often refer to the role of asset “fire sales” in depleting the balance sheets of financial institutions and aggravating the fragility of the financial system. For example, a report from the U.S. Treasury (2009) held: 'An initial fundamental shock associated with the bursting of the housing bubble and deteriorating economic conditions generated losses for leveraged investors including banks...The resulting need to reduce risk triggered a wide-scale deleveraging in these markets and led to fire sales.' Similarly, a discussion of..." Link