"The intensity of recent turbulence in financial markets has surprised nearly everyone. This paper searches out the root causes of the crisis, distinguishing them from scapegoating explanations that have been used in policy circles to divert attention from the underlying breakdown of incentives....

"This essay shows that government credit-allocation schemes generate incentive conflicts that undermine the quality of bank supervision and eventually produce banking crisis. For political reasons, most countries establish a regulatory culture that embraces three economically contradictory...

The divergence between increasingly supranational financial markets on the one hand and still largely national supervisory structures on the other gives rise to tensions which reduce the effectiveness of the supervision. It lies in the interests of both the public and the private sector that the...

This paper models and estimates ex ante safety-net benefits at a sample of large banks in US and Europe during 2003-2008. Our results suggest that difficult-to-fail and unwind (DFU) banks enjoyed substantially higher ex ante benefits than other institutions. Safety-net benefits prove...

This paper investigates the links between regulatory arbitrage, financial instability, and taxpayer loss exposures. We model and estimate ex ante safety-net benefits from increased leverage and asset volatility at a sample of large banks in US and Europe during 2003-2008. Hypothesis tests...