This paper provides a first study of the optimal design of active monitors' exit options in a problem involving a demand for liquidity and costly monitoring of the issuer. Optimal incentives to monitor the issuer may involve restricting the monitor's right to sell her claims on the firm's...

This paper develops a model of an unregulated banking system based around a private clearing house arrangement. Whilst such a system may dominate one with a public safety net in reducing moral hazard in lending and therefore the scope for individual bank insolvency, it also increases the...

There is a long normative ‘Social Contract’ tradition that attempts to characterize ex-post income inequalities that are agreeable to all ‘behind a veil of ignorance.’ This paper takes a similar normative approach to characterize social decision-making procedures. It is...

The paper proposes a framework to analyze the effects of various bank bailout policies on bank managers' incentives first to lend prudently and second to disclose truthfully their non-performing loans. It is shown that tough bank closure rules have counterproductive effects on bank managers'...