The Collateral Costs of Clearing

Abstract 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.