Which financial frictions? Parsing the evidence from the financial crisis of 2007-09

We provide an overview of data requirements necessary to monitor repurchase agreements (repos) and securities lending (sec lending) markets for the purposes of informing policymakers and researchers about firm-level and systemic risk. We start by explaining the functioning of these markets, and argue that it is crucial to understand the institutional arrangements. Data collection is currently incomplete. A comprehensive collection should include six characteristics of repo and sec lending trades at the firm level: principal amount, interest rate, collateral type, haircut, tenor, and counterparty.