Includes bibliographical references and index.

Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Connectedness, contagion, and correlation : definitions and a review of the economic literature -- The concept of connectedness -- The concept and history of contagion -- The concept of correlation -- Connectedness in the crisis -- Asset connectedness : Lehman and AIG -- Liability connectedness : money market funds and tri-party repo market -- The Dodd-Frank Act policies to address connectedness -- Contagion -- Contagion in the 2008 crisis : the run on the non-bank sector, "shadow banks" -- The history of lender of last resort in the United States -- Dodd-Frank restrictions on the lender of last resort power -- Comparison of LLR powers of fed with Bank of England, European Central Bank, and Bank of Japan -- Strengthening the LLR powers of the fed -- Liability insurance and guarantees -- Insuring money market funds -- Ex-ante policies to avoid contagion : capital, liquidity, resolution, money market mutual fund reform, and limits on short-term funding -- Capital requirements : Basel III framework -- Liquidity requirements -- Bank resolution procedures, contingent capital (CoCos), and bail-ins -- Dodd-Frank orderly liquidation for non-bank SIFIs (including bank holding companies) -- Living wills -- Money market mutual fund reform -- The dependence of the financial system on short-term funding -- Government crowding out of private issuance of short-term debt -- Public capital injections into insolvent financial institutions, i.e "bailouts" -- Capital purchase program and other TARP support programs -- Criticisms of bailouts generally -- Specific criticism of tarp -- Standing bailout programs -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index.

The Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 was intended to reform financial policies in order to prevent another massive crisis such as the financial meltdown of 2008. Dodd-Frank is largely premised on the diagnosis that connectedness was the major problem in that crisis - that is, that financial institutions were overexposed to one another, resulting in a possible chain reaction of failures. In this work, Hal Scott argues that it is not connectedness but contagion that is the most significant element of systemic risk facing the financial system