This report presents an overview of the theory of regulation in general, with special attention for the regulation of banks. Two theories of government regulation are described. The first, normative, theory uses market failures as the justification of government regulation. The second, positive,...

Economic hardship is strongly reflected by the housing market. It is the concern of much research, but its analysis is often obstructed by insufficient lagged data. This paper evaluates search intensity for "hardship letter" from Google Insights to detect ensuing mortgage delinquencies. Such...

Using a new, comprehensive database on bank ownership, identifying also the home country of foreign banks, for 137 countries over the period 1995-2009, this paper provides an overview of foreign bank activity and its impact of financial development and stability. We document substantial...

Government bonds receive preferential treatment in financial regulation. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of this preferential treatment on banks' demand for government bonds. Using unique transaction-level data, our analysis suggests that preferential treatment in liquidity...

When does the general public lose trust in banks? We provide empirical evidence using responses by Dutch survey participants to eight hypothetical scenarios. We find that members of the general public care strongly about executive compensation. Negative media reports, falling stock prices, and...

The Diamond-Dybvig model provides an explanation for: (1) the existence of banks as a risk sharing agreement between depositors against unexpected liquidity needs, (2) bank runs as an act of collective irrationality by rational depositors, and (3) the introduction of deposit insurance as an...

This paper presents an analysis on the sensitivity of the Dutch interbank payment system with respect to the value transferred and the amount of available collateral. The Dutch system can be characterised as a system with a few large and many relatively small participants.Historical data has...

This paper provides an overview of the literature on intraday credit in payment systems to date and explores the dilemma central banks face when deciding on their intraday credit policies. On the one hand, any strategy in which the costs of liquidity are not fully borne by payment system...

This paper assesses the impact of an operational failure at one of the biggest participants in the Dutch interbank payment system, varying the time at which the disruption takes place. Liquidity levels equal historical levels. The impact of such a disruption is quantified in terms of the...