This paper develops a framework for analyzing socially and privately optimal bank loan-monitoring decisions, with and without capital regulation. In contrast to the monitoring decision of a social planner who seeks to maximize the utility of aggregate consumption, banks choose to monitor only if...

This paper develops a model of the banking firm and tests for the presence of 'portfolio separation.' The theoretical model generalizes existing intertemporal adjustment-costs models by assuming that these costs coexist simultaneously on both sides of the bank's balance sheet. Our analysis...