The paper constructs a search-theoretic model of credit markets with a bilateral trading mechanism that enables the manageable introduction of asymmetric information. Borrowers´ success probabilities are unobservable to financiers, but the degree of risk in observable projects can be used as a...

Consider a competitive bank whose illiquid asset portfolio is funded by short-term debt that has to be refinanced before the asset matures. We show that in this setting maximal transparency is not socially optimal, and that the existence of social externalities of bank failures further lowers...

We consider the impact of mandatory information disclosure on bank safety in a spatial model of banking competition in which a bank’s probability of success depends on the quality of its risk measurement and management systems. Under Basel II capital requirements, this quality is either fully...

Although beneficial allocational effects have been a central motivator for the Basel II capital adequacy reform, the interaction of these effects with Basel II’s procyclical impact has been less discussed. In this paper, we investigate the effect of capital requirements on the allocation of...

Although beneficial allocational effects have been a central motivation for the Basel II capital adequacy reform, the interaction of these effects with Basel II’s procyclical impact has been less discussed. In this paper, we investigate the effect of Basel II on the efficiency of bank lending....

We study the effects on credit allocation and bank stability of introducing a leverage ratio requirement (LRR) on top of risk-based capital requirements, as in Basel III. For the current 3% LRR, both low-risk and high-risk loan rates and volumes remain essentially unchanged, because banks...

We show how banks’ excessive risk-taking, stemming from informational asymmetries in loan markets, can lead to an excessive output loss when a recession starts. Risk-based capital requirements can alleviate the output loss by reducing excessive risk-taking in ‘normal’ times. Model...

In this paper we consider equilibrium behavior in a Dutch (descending price) auction where the bidders are uninformed of their valuations with probability q and can acquire information about their valuation at a positive cost during the auction. We assume that the information acquisition...

We investigate the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) compensation and innovation. In an empirical examination of compensation contracts of S&P 400, 500, and 600 firms we find that long-term incentives in the form of options are positively related to patents and citations to...

Bank managers often claim that equity is expensive relative to debt, which contradicts the Modigliani-Miller irrelevance theorem. This paper combines dividend signalling theories and the Diamond-Dybvig bank run model. An opaque bank must signal its solvency by paying high and stable dividends in...