Register, cap and trade: a proposal for containing systemic liquidity risk

A fundamental cause of the global financial crisis was excessive maturity mismatch, notably shadow banking holdings of sub-prime MBS and other structured credit instruments and crossborder Euro area interbank lending to the uncompetitive Euro area periphery. The costs of short term funding do not fully reflect underlying asset risks and this created systemic liquidity and credit risks. This externality can be controlled through the issue of tradable licenses for short term funding. This is a simpler and more efficient way of addressing systemic liquidity risk than the controls on individual institutions proposed by international regulators.