# An op-ed by Nobel Laureate & Prof. Robert Engle & Profs Viral Acharya & Matthew Richardson

1 Faculty News March 14, 2012 ![VoxEU logo ](/sites/default/files/styles/246w/public/assets/images/con_030499.jpg?itok=Qjpc4sQk)>

Excerpt from [VoxEU](http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/48504) -- "Systemic risk should not be described in terms of a financial firm’s failure per se but in the context of a firm’s overall contribution to system-wide failure. The intuition is straightforward. When only an individual financial firm’s capital is low, the firm can no longer financially intermediate."

[Read more  ](http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/48504)
Additional coverage appeared in [The Wall Street Journal blog](http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/03/14/secondary-sources-deleveraging-generation-stuck-regulation/).