When liquidity chasing banks is high, loan officers (or risk-takers) inside banks expect future losses to be readily rolled over. This insurance effect induces them to relax lending standards. The resulting access to cheap credit can fuel asset price bubbles in the economy. To curb such...

This paper introduces a new financial vulnerability index for emerging market economies by exploiting key differences in their business cycles relative to those of advanced economies. Information on the domestic price of risk, cost of dollar hedging and market-based measures of bank...

We examine the financial conditions of dealers that participated in two of the Federal Reserve's lender-of-last-resort (LOLR) facilities -- the Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) and the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF) -- that provided liquidity against a range of assets during...

We analyze how regulatory constraints on household leverage—in the form of loan-to-income and loan-to-value limits—affect residential mortgage credit and house prices as well as other asset classes not directly targeted by the limits. Supervisory loan level data suggest that mortgage credit...

We study the interbank lending and asset sales markets in which banks with surplus liquidity have market power, frictions arise in lending due to moral hazard, and assets are bank-specific. Illiquid banks have weak outside options that allow surplus banks to ration lending, resulting in...

The paper analyzes the financial crisis of through the lens of market failures and regulatory failures. We present a case that there were four primary failures contributing to the crisis: excessive risk-taking in the financial sector due to mispriced government guarantees; regulatory focus on...

We analyze the determinants and the long-run consequences of government interventions in the eurozone banking sector during the 2008/09 financial crisis. Using a novel and comprehensive dataset, we document that fiscally constrained governments "kicked the can down the road" by providing banks...

The paper analyzes the financial crisis of 2007-2009 through the lens of market failures and regulatory failures and presents a case that there were four primary failures contributing to the crisis: excessive risk-taking in the financial sector due to mispriced government guarantees; regulatory...

We investigate the transmission of central bank liquidity to bank deposits and loan spreads in Europe over the January 2006 to June 2010 period. We find evidence consistent with an impaired transmission channel due to bank risk. Central bank liquidity does not translate into lower loan spreads...