.
They just made certain aspects much worse.
That's the conclusion of a new report “Hedge Funds and Systemic
Risk” — from RAND Corp, a non-profit research and policy organization.
The report's authors analyzed the extent to which hedge funds create or
contribute to systemic risk. In the the context of the 2008 global market
crash, their conclusion was that hedge funds did not play as significant
a role in the crisis as credit-rating agencies, mortgage lenders and
credit default swaps issuers.
“We found little evidence that hedge funds contributed to the housing
bubble” or that their short selling of financial stocks was “a major
contributing factor,” said Lloyd Dixon, lead author of the study and a
RAND senior economist, in a news release about the report.
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