Discussion Paper
The Fragility of an MMF-Intermediated Financial System
Cipriani, Marco; Parigi, Bruno; Martin, Antoine (2013-12-23)
Since the financial crisis of 2007-09—and, in particular, the run on prime money market funds (MMFs) in September 2008—policymakers have been concerned that the funds’ fragility may render banks themselves more susceptible to risk. For instance, in a recent article and speech arguing in favor of MMF reform, New York Fed President Bill Dudley stated that MMF fragility may contribute to financial market systemic risk. The idea that the susceptibility of MMFs to runs may make the financial system more unstable seems intuitive, but is it correct? In this post, we show that the idea isn’t ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20131223

Discussion Paper
Stabilizing the Tri-Party Repo Market by Eliminating the “Unwind”
Martin, Antoine (2011-07-20)
On July 6, 2011, the Task Force on Tri-Party Repo Infrastructure—an industry group sponsored by the New York Fed—released a Progress Report in which it reaffirmed the goal of eliminating the wholesale “unwind” of repos (and the requisite extension of more than a trillion dollars of intraday credit by repo clearing banks), but acknowledged unspecified delays in achieving that goal. The “unwind” is the settlement of repos that currently takes place each morning and replaces credit from investors with credit from the clearing banks. As I explain in this post, by postponing settlement ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20110720

Working Paper
The Relationship between Market Depth and Liquidity Fragility in the Treasury Market
Meldrum, Andrew C.; Sokolinskiy, Oleg (2025-02-21)
Analysis of market liquidity often focuses on measures of the current cost of trading. However, investors and policy-makers also care about what would happen to liquidity in the event of an adverse shock. If liquidity were to deteriorate rapidly at times when investors were seeking to rebalance portfolios, this could amplify the effects of shocks to the financial system even if liquidity is high most of the time. We examine the potential for such fragility of liquidity in the Treasury market. We show that a reduction in the availability of resting orders to trade ("market depth") increases ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2025-014