This important volume presents key contributions to the study of financial crises from many different areas of economics. The book offers an economic history of financial crises, empirical studies of crises in the modern era, and classic works on the theory of banking crises. It also covers...

This important volume presents key contributions to the study of financial crises from many different areas of economics. The book offers an economic history of financial crises, empirical studies of crises in the modern era, and classic works on the theory of banking crises. It also covers...

Most analyses of banking crises assume that banks use real contracts but in practice contracts are nominal. We consider a standard banking model with aggregate return risk, aggregate liquidity risk and idiosyncratic liquidity shocks. With non-contingent nominal deposit contracts, a decentralized...

We develop a simple model of the interbank market where banks trade a long term, safe asset. When there is a lack of opportunities for banks to hedge idiosyncratic and aggregate liquidity shocks, the interbank market is characterized by excessive price volatility. In such a situation, a central...

Traditional analyses with incomplete markets take the securities that are traded as exogenous. In this paper we endogenize the market structure by considering incentives to introduce (costly) options exchanges which issue derivative securities. The method of financing the exchange is critical in...

We review some recent research that explores the relationship between asset-price volatility and financial fragility when markets and contracts are incomplete. (JEL: E5, G2) Copyright (c) 2005 The European Economic Association.

It is generally agreed that speculators can make profits from insider trading or from the release of false information. Both forms of stock-price manipulation have now been made illegal. In this article, the authors ask whether it is possible to make profits from a different kind of...