DP7528 Paulson's Gift

Author(s):	Pietro Veronesi, Luigi Zingales
Publication Date:	November 2009
Keyword(s):	bankruptcy, credit crisis, government intervention
JEL(s):	G08, G21, G28
Programme Areas:	Financial Economics
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=7528

We calculate the costs and benefits of the largest ever U.S. Government intervention in the financial sector announced the 2008 Columbus-day weekend. We estimate that this intervention increased the value of banks? financial claims by $131 billion at a taxpayers?cost of $25 -$47 billions with a net benefit between $84bn and $107bn. By looking at the limited cross section we infer that this net benefit arises from a reduction in the probability of bankruptcy, which we estimate would destroy 22% of the enterprise value. The big winners of the plan were the three former investment banks and Citigroup, while the loser was JP Morgan.