In this paper, we study the optimal design of financial safety nets under limited private credit. We ask when it is optimal to restrict ex ante the set of investors that can receive public liquidity support ex post. When the government can commit, the optimal safety net covers all investors....

In March 1985, the failure of the Ohio Deposit Guarantee Fund (the ODGF) sent shock waves reverberating through the financial world. This episode is popularly interpreted as evidence of the dangers of both private deposit insurance and continuing financial deregulation. This paper argues that...

What is the effect of financial crises and their resolution on banks' choice of liquid asset holdings? When risky assets have limited pledgeability and banks have relative expertise in employing risky assets, the market for these assets clears only at fire-sale prices following a large number of...

This paper suggests that the introduction of bank branching restrictions and federal deposit insurance in the United States likely was motivated by political considerations. Specifically, we argue that these restrictions were instituted for the benefit of the small, unit banks that were unable...

Economic theories posit that bank liability insurance is designed as serving the public interest by mitigating systemic risk in the banking system through liquidity risk reduction. Political theories see liability insurance as serving the private interests of banks, bank borrowers, and...

Deposit insurance reduces liquidity risk but it also can increase insolvency risk by encouraging reckless behavior. A handful of U.S. states installed deposit insurance laws before the creation of the FDIC in 1933, and those laws only applied to some depository institutions within those states....

This paper explains that financial safety nets exist because of difficulties in enforcing contracts and shows that elements of deposit-insurance schemes differ substantially across countries. It argues that differences in the design of financial safety nets correlate significantly with...

This paper provides a positive political economy analysis of the most important revision of the U.S. supervision and regulation system during the last two decades, the 1991 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act (FDICIA). We analyze the impact of private interest groups as well as...

The costs of government assistance to banks depend on the way rescues are managed. The cnetral questions of policy reference do not revolve around whether to bail out banks, but rather around the choice of which banks to rescue and the means for doing so. If a rescue is handled skillfully, the...

Eight states established deposit insurance systems between 1908 and 1917. All abandoned the systems between 1921 and 1930. Scholars debate the costs and benefits of these policy experiments. New data drawn from the archives of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors demonstrate that deposit...