In summer 2011, elevated sovereign risk in Eurozone peripheral countries increased the solvency risk of Eurozone banks, precipitating a run on their short-term debt. We assess the effectiveness of different European Central Bank (ECB) interventions that followed – lender of last resort vs....

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...

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 model a loop between sovereign and bank credit risk. A distressed financial sector induces government bailouts, whose cost leads to increased sovereign credit risk. Increased sovereign credit risk in turn weakens the financial sector by eroding the value of its government debt guarantees and...

One of the several regulatory failures behind the global financial crisis that started in 2007 has been the regulatory focus on individual, rather than systemic, risk of financial institutions. Focusing on systemically important assets and liabilities (SIALs) rather than individual financial...

While the direct effect of lender-of-last-resort (LOLR) facilities is to forestall the default of financial firms that lose funding liquidity, an indirect effect is to allow these firms to minimize deleveraging sales of illiquid assets. This unintended consequence of LOLR facilities manifests...

What is the effect of financial crises and their resolution on banks' choice of liquidity? When banks have relative expertise in employing risky assets, the market for these assets clears only at fire-sale prices following a large number of bank failures. The gains from acquiring assets at...

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...

In recent years, assets of non-bank financial intermediaries (NBFIs) have grown significantly relative to those of banks. These two sectors are commonly viewed either as operating in parallel, performing different activities, or as substitutes, performing substantially similar activities, with...

This paper studies a model in which a low monetary policy rate lowers the cost of capital for entrepreneurs, potentially spurring productive investment. Low interest rates, however, also induce entrepreneurs to lever up so as to increase payouts to equity. Whereas such leveraged payouts...