This paper studies the question to what extent premia for macroeconomic risks in banking are sufficient to avoid banking crises. We investigate a competitive banking system embedded in an overlapping generation model subject to repeated macroeconomic shocks. We show that even if banks fully...

We investigate the question of whether sophistication in risk management fosters banking stability. We compare a simple banking system in which an average rating is used with a sophisticated banking system in which banks are able to assess the default risk of entrepreneurs individually. Both...

This paper uses a VAR to investigate four possible explanations of the extended slump in Japanese economic activity over the 1990s: the absence of bold and consistent fiscal stimulus; the limited room for expansionary monetary policy due to a liquidity trap; overinvestment and debt overhang; and...

We examine the optimal allocation of equity and debt across banks and industrial firms when both are faced with incentive problems and firms borrow from banks. Increasing bank equity mitigates the bank-level moral hazard but may exacerbate the firm-level moral hazard due to the dilution of firm...

This paper examines bond and syndicated bank finance in the Euromarkets. It uses a comprehensive data bank on Euromarkets to evaluate alternative theories of financial intermediation. A model is estimated that provides a good description of firms' choice of finance. The paper concludes that...

In this paper we investigate the role of credit institutions in transmitting monetary shocks to the domestic economy and to the output of the rest of the world. In modelling the monetary and financial sector of the economy we distinguish between monetary injections that take place via lump-sum...

This work presents an equilibrium model of diversification through merger formation. Due to moral hazard problems, poorly capitalized firms are credit rationed and may seek to alleviate the incentive problem (and thereby raise external funds) by either merging, employing a monitor or a...

We explore the pricing of variance risk by decomposing stocks' total variance into systematic and idiosyncratic return variances. While systematic variance risk exhibits a negative price of risk, common shocks to the variances of idiosyncratic returns carry a large positive risk premium. This...

We propose a heteroscedastic regression model to identify the determinants of the dispersion in interest rates on loans granted to small and medium sized enterprises. We interpret unexplained deviations as evidence of the banks’ discretionary use of market power in the loan rate setting...

This paper tells the story of how paper money evolved as a result of lending by banks. While lending commodity money requires holding large reserves of commodity money to ensure liquidity, issuing convertible paper money reduces these costs significantly. The paper also examines the possibility...