Quantifying systemic risk.

• Position: Bureau Books

Quantifying Systemic Risk, edited by Joseph Haubrich and Andrew Lo, will be available from the University of Chicago Press in January 2013.

In the aftermath of the recent financial crisis, the U.S. federal government has pursued significant regulatory reforms, including proposals to measure and monitor systemic risk. Still, there has been much debate about how this might be accomplished, both quantitatively and objectively, or whether it is even possible.

This NBER Conference Report looks at various ways to measure systemic risk and explores the challenges of tying regulations to specific quantitative measures of risk. It also considers the effects of learning and adaptation on the evolution of the market, and the distinction between shocks that start a crisis and those mechanisms that enable a crisis to worsen.

Joseph G. Haubrich is a vice president of and an...