directly linked to systemic crisis. Therefore, contingent capital with institution-level trigger absorbs loss caused by systemic risk and non-systemic risk. Someone might have concerns about the unnecessary protection for firms taking more than necessary non-systemic risk. Flannery (2009) pointed out that systemically important firms cannot be permitted to fail, as it might cause market turbulence, no matter what the cause is. The prevention from bankruptcy due to non-systemic risk might help protect the incapable managers. Flannery (2009) argued that it is a general corporate governance issue and is not something new brought by contingent capital. Contingent capital can at least protect the taxpayers as intended.
An industry-level trigger event may be more suitable for mitigating systemic risk. With the industry-level trigger in place, contingent capital instruments will be converted only in a systemic crisis. However, it may be hard to implement in an objective way and may convey an adverse message to the market upon conversion. If the industry-level trigger is at the regulators' discretion, due to the signaling effect of conversion, there is political pressure which might delay the triggering and therefore cause more loss. A trigger event that is solely based on the industry-level condition could act as an disincentive for sound risk management, as all the firms are treated the same, no matter how much systemic risk they contribute to the industry.
Some proposals include a dual trigger based on both an institution level condition and an industry level condition. Only when both conditions are true will the conversion be automatically triggered. Examples include Squam Lake Working Group (2009) and McDonald (2011).