Federal regulators characterize capital forbearance as an efficient way of nursing weak banks and thrifts back to health. An alternative hypothesis is that forbearance reflects inefficient costs of agency that fall on federal deposit-insurance funds. Divergences between regulatory measures of a...

This paper weeks to measure the opportunity cost of FSLIC forbearance during 1985-1989. Although the opportunity cost of delay did not increase every year, it did increase on average. Had opportunity-cost standards of capital adequacy been routinely enforced, FSLIC guarantees would not have...

Federal regulators characterize capital forbearance as an efficient way of nursing weak banks and thrifts back to health. An alternative hypothesis is that forbearance reflects inefficient costs of agency that fall on federal deposit-insurance funds. Divergences between regulatory measures of a...

The Securities and Futures Bureau (SFB) of Taiwan prescribes that firms applying for an initial listing after February 2002 must have at least two seats of independent directors (IDs) on the board. Under the SFB 2002 rules, this paper investigates the effect of such governance reforms in ID...

The Securities and Futures Bureau (SFB) of Taiwan prescribes that firms applying for an initial listing after February 2002 must have at least two seats of independent directors (IDs) on the board. Under the SFB 2002 rules, this paper investigates the effect of such governance reforms in ID...

"Considered as a social contract, a financial safety net imposes duties and confers rights on different sectors of the economy. Within a nation, elements of incompleteness inherent in this contract generate principal-agent conflicts that are mitigated by formal agreements, norms, laws, and the...

"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...