Clearinghouses and credit default swaps

Sebastian Mallaby sends me a link to this paper, with this summary statement:

This paper analyzes the market for credit default swaps and makes specific recommendations about appropriate roles for clearinghouses and about how they should be organized. Clearinghouses are not a panacea and the benefits they offer will be reduced if there are too many of them. Further, clearinghouses that manage only credit default swaps but not other kinds of derivative contract may actually increase counterparty and systemic risk, contrary to the assumption of many policy makers.