During the recent financial crisis, central banks have provided liquidity and governments have set up rescue programmes to restore confidence and stability, often against the LLR principle advocated by Bagehot. Using a model of a systemic bank suffering from liquidity shocks, we find that the...

Central bank policy suffers from time-inconsistency when facing a banking crisis: A bailout is optimal ex post but ex ante it should be limited to control moral hazard. Dollarization provides a credible commitment not to help at the cost of not helping even when it would be ex ante optimal to do...

We study liquidity transfers between banks through the interbank borrowing and asset sale markets when (i) surplus banks providing liquidity have market power, (ii) there are frictions in the lending market due to moral hazard, and (iii) assets are bank-specific. We show that when the outside...

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...

This paper studies the strategic interaction between a bank whose deposits are randomly withdrawn, and a lender of last resort (LLR) that bases its decision on supervisory information on the quality of the bank’s assets. The bank is subject to a capital requirement and chooses the liquidity...

Banking regulation has proven to be inadequate to guard systemic stability in the recent financial crisis. Central banks have provided liquidity and ministries of finance have set up rescue programmes to restore confidence and stability. Using a model of a systemic bank suffering from liquidity...

The paper establishes that sovereigns, like banks, need a lender of last resort (LoLR). In the euro area the ECB, with its estimated €3.4 trillion non-inflationary loss absorption capacity, is the only credible sovereign LoLR. The ECB/Eurosystem has been acting as sovereign LoLR through its...

Bailout expectations have led banks to behave imprudently, holding too little capital and relying too much on short term funding to finance long term investments. This paper presents a model to rationalize a constructive ambiguity approach to liquidity assistance as a solution to forbearance....

Using a comprehensive panel data set on U.S. households, we study the effects of the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), the most substantive reform of personal bankruptcy in the United States since the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978. The 2005 legislation...

This 2003 Institute for Fiscal Studies Lecture addresses two sets of issues relevant to current and prospective future E(M)U members: the consequences of the Stability and Growth Pact for fiscal-financial sustainability and macroeconomic stability, and some risks associated with operational...