The Doomsday Book is a collection of documents and memoranda compiled by the legal department of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY). The book focuses on financial crises that have prompted an operational response such as emergency loans and payments. The book includes background material that is useful in responding to a financial crisis and can help central bankers plan for emergencies. Further, it is meant to save time during the crisis.

Contents of the Doomsday Book have not been available to the public. However, I obtained access to the book through the FRBNY's freedom of information policy. This paper discloses the book's contents, showing that there has been a long and continuous disagreement between the FRBNY's legal department and the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System with respect to the interpretation of the Fed's incidental powers.

Lack of Transparency about the Contents of the Doomsday Book

The book is intended to help the FRBNY's lawyers assist their clients in emergency  management, as the FRBNY is considered the central bank's "firefighting department" during a financial crisis. There is no comparable "doomsday book" in Washington, D.C., or any other regional Reserve Bank. The book is maintained in paper and digital disk versions and is revised periodically. The editor (the FRBNY's general counsel) is the gatekeeper for all additions and revisions to the book.

Emre Kuvvet is a professor of finance at Nova Southeastern University.

Washington, D.C., or any other regional Reserve Bank. The book is maintained in paper and digital disk versions and is revised periodically. The editor (the FRBNY's general counsel) is the gatekeeper for all additions and revisions to the book.

Although the Doomsday Book has existed in various forms since the early 1990s, the public first heard about it in 2014 during the Starr International Company, Inc. v. United States trial.1 In that trial, a class of former equity investors in the American International Group (AIG) sued the government over the terms of its bailout of AIG. The investors claimed that some of the memoranda in the Doomsday Book showed that the Fed broke its own rules and ignored the legal opinions in the book by taking a 79.9 percent equity stake in AIG in the fall of 2008. Further, the plaintiffs argued that the Fed lacked the authority to take an equity stake in the company.