Premium
The Collateral Costs of Clearing
Author(s) -
MONNET CYRIL,
NELLEN THOMAS
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of money, credit and banking
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.763
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1538-4616
pISSN - 0022-2879
DOI - 10.1111/jmcb.12802
Subject(s) - clearing , collateral , counterparty , welfare , settlement (finance) , business , economics , investment (military) , monetary economics , finance , market economy , credit risk , payment , law , politics , political science
We study three generic clearing arrangements in the presence of two‐sided limited commitment: simple bilateral clearing, segregated collateral clearing through a third party, and—most sophisticated—central counterparty (CCP) clearing. Clearing secures the settlement of obligations from over‐the‐counter forward contracts that smooth the income of risk‐averse traders. Clearing requires collateral to guarantee settlement; this is costly, as it reduces income from investment. More sophisticated clearing arrangements require more collateral. As a result, the welfare gains of CCP clearing may be mostly due to segregation, while mutualization of losses could contribute little to welfare.