This paper studies relationship lending in a framework where the cost of switching banks measures the degree of banking competition. The relationship lender's (insider bank's) informational advantage creates a lock-in effect, which is at its height when the switching cost is infinitesimal.This...

We study the adverse selection problem in imperfectly competitive credit markets and illustrate the circumstances where a separating equilibrium emerges, even without collateral.The borrowers are heterogeneous in their preferences concerning the banks.Separation obtains in market segments where...

This paper proposes and tests an explanation as to why rational managers seeking to maximize shareholder value can pursue value-decreasing mergers. It can be optimal to overpay for a target firm and decrease shareholder value if the loss is less than in an alternative where the merger is...

We establish that the effect of intensified deposit market competition, measured by reduced switching costs, on the probability of bank failures depends critically on whether we focus on competition with established customer relationships or competition for the formation of such relationships....

A parsimonious extension of a well-known portfolio credit-risk model allows us to study a salient stylized fact - abrupt switches between high- and low-loss phases - from a risk-management perspective. As uncertainty about phase switches increases, expected losses decouple from unexpected...

We study public funding of banks and non-financial firms in a time of crisis. We find that bank capitalization is more effective in stabilizing the economy than direct funding to firms, but it also creates larger distortions. We show that the optimal, social-welfare-maximizing, structure of a...

We survey 149 leading academic researchers on bank capital regulation. The median (average) respondent prefers a 10% (15%) minimum non-risk-weighted equity-to-assets ratio, which is considerably higher than the current requirement. North Americans prefer a significantly higher equity-to-assets...

We study the impact of disclosure about bank fundamentals on depositors' behavior in the presence (and absence) of economic linkages between financial institutions. Using a controlled laboratory environment, we identify under which conditions disclosure is conducive to bank stability. We find...

Extending a standard credit-risk model illustrates that a single factor can drive both expected losses and the extent to which they may be exceeded in extreme scenarios, ie "unexpected losses." This leads us to develop a framework for forecasting these losses jointly. In an application to...

An asset is money-like if investors have no incentives to acquire costly private information on the underlying collateral. However, privately provided money-like assets-like prime money market fund (MMF) shares-are prone to runs if investors suddenly start to question the value of the...