Debt, Financial Fragility and Systemic Risk

A remarkable feature of the period since the 1970 has been the patterns of rapid and turbulent change in financing behaviour and financial structure in many advanced countries. These patterns have, in turn, often been marked by rising indebtedness, default on loans and periods of financial instability, whether in the non-financial sector, the financial sector or both. This book explores, both in theoretical and empirical terms, the nature of the relationships between the underlying phenomena: namely levels and changes in borrowing (debt), vulnerability to default in the corporate and household sectors (financial fragility), and widespread disorder in the financial sector (systemic risk). The book focuses on the wider generality of the phenomena at issue whereby similar patterns are observable in several countries, but not in others, as well as in the international capital markets themselves. Particular attention is paid to the importance of the nature and evolution of financial structure to the genesis of instability.
Given the international scope of the analysis, the work is germane to the study of the development of financial systems in all advanced countries, as well as the Euromarkets. It should be of particular relevance, however, in the US, Japan, Germany, France, the UK and Canada, whose experience is examined in detail.