Superseded by Working Paper 15-20. Monetary economists have long recognized a tension between the benefits of fractional reserve banking, such as the ability to undertake more profitable (long-term) investment opportunities, and the difficulties associated with fractional reserve banking, such...

This paper conducts an in-depth analysis of structured finance asset-backed securities collateralized debt obligations (SF ABS CDOs), the subset of CDOs that traded on the ABS CDO desks at the major investment banks and were a major contributor to the global financial panic of August 2007....

Earlier studies found little evidence of scale economies at large banks; later studies using data from the 1990s uncovered such evidence, providing a rationale for very large banks seen worldwide. Using more recent data, the authors estimate scale economies using two production models. The...

The authors examine investors' reactions to announcements of large seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) by U.S. financial institutions (FIs) from 2000 to 2009. These offerings include market infusions as well as injections of government capital under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The...

The authors show that the regulation of bank lending practices is necessary for the optimal provision of private liquidity. In an environment in which bankers cannot commit to repay their creditors, the authors show that neither an unregulated banking system nor narrow banking can provide the...

Self regulation encouraged by market discipline constitutes a key component of Basel II’s third pillar. But high-risk investment strategies may maximize the expected value of some banks. In these cases, does market discipline encourage risk-taking that undermines bank stability in economic...

This study looks inside a large retail-banking group to understand how influence within the group affects internal capital allocations and lending behavior at the member bank level. The group consists of 181 member banks that jointly own a headquarters. Influence is measured by the divergence...

The authors compare two stylized frameworks for the implementation of monetary policy. The first framework relies only on standing facilities, while the second framework relies only on open market operations. They show that the Friedman rule cannot be implemented when the central bank uses...

The authors study banking using the tools of mechanism design, without a priori assumptions about what banks are, who they are, or what they do. Given preferences, technologies, and certain frictions - including limited commitment and imperfect monitoring - they describe the set of incentive...

The authors study credible information transmission by a benevolent central bank. They consider two possibilities: direct revelation through an announcement, versus indirect information transmission through monetary policy. These two ways of transmitting information have very different...