Banking crises are usually followed by a decline in credit and growth. Is this because crises tend to take place during economic downturns, or do banking sector problems have independent negative effects on the economy? To answer this question we examine industrial sectors with differing needs...

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...

This Paper analyses the effects on ex ante risk-shifting incentives and ex post fiscal costs of three policies that are frequently used in dealing with banking crises, namely, forbearance from prudential regulations, extension of blanket deposit guarantees, and provision of unrestricted...

Banks are highly leveraged institutions, potentially attracted to speculative lending even without deposit insurance. A counterbalancing incentive to lend prudently is the risk of loss of charter value, which depends on future rents. We show in a dynamic model that current concentration does not...

This paper analyses the role fiscal policy plays during banking crises in supporting short-term GDP growth and the growth potential. Using a database covering 56 advanced and emerging economies for the period 1970-2008, it is found that fiscal policy, whether it is expansionary or...

This Paper develops a broad concept of systemic risk, the basic economic concept for the understanding of financial crises. It is claimed that any such concept must integrate systemic events in banking and financial markets as well as in the related payment and settlement systems. At the heart...

As the number of bank failures increases, the set of assets available for acquisition by the surviving banks enlarges but the total amount of available liquidity within the surviving banks falls. This results in ‘cash-in-the-market’ pricing for liquidation of banking assets. At a...

We analyse a general equilibrium model in which there is both adverse selection of and moral hazard by banks. The regulator has several tools at their disposal to combat these problems. They can audit banks to learn their type prior to giving them a license, they can audit them ex post to learn...

Insurance contracts contingent on macroeconomic shocks or on average bank capital could be a way of insuring against systemic crises. With insurance, banks are recapitalized when negative events would otherwise cause a write down of capital or even bank insolvency. In a simple model we...

Conventional wisdom holds that overlending problems and banking crises in open economies are provoked by investor moral hazard, which is caused in turn by guarantees on deposits. This Paper shows that this is not necessarily the case: guarantees on deposits may even limit the losses banks...