The Legacy Loans Program (LLP) is an elaborate way of slicing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC's) receivership assets. At best, the financial structure is irrelevant to the FDIC's expected long-run recovery rates. Yet, it may boost short-term prices by creating bond insurance...

When a bank is deemed 'too big to fail' by regulators, it may be tempted to buy risky assets. This paper analyses bank bailouts involving the purchases of toxic assets, preferred stock and common stock when the government wants to encourage efficient lending. It finds that preferred stock...