Pensions, Risk, and Global Systemically Important Financial Institutions

Following the 2007–2009 financial crisis, global policymakers enacted some of the most sweeping financial regulatory reforms in the past 70 years. Initially, policymakers focused on the banking system, but in recent years they have looked beyond banks for other sources of systemic risk. This chapter briefly describes systemic risk, how bank-oriented models and rules have influenced the thinking about systemic risk, and how this thinking has affected the subsequent regulatory focus on pension funds and asset management as sources of systemic risk. The chapter then examines some of the current theories of how asset management products could pose risks to the financial system