This paper examines alternative ways to prevent losses from bank insolvencies. It is widely viewed that transparency in reporting bank balance sheets is a key element in reducing such losses. It is, however, unclear just how such transparency would be achieved. Current approaches to avoiding...

This article formalizes investor rationality and irrationality, exuberance and apprehension, to consider the implications of belief formation for the fragility of an economy¦s financial structure. The model presented generates a financial structure with portfolio linkages that make it...