This introduces the symposium on financial economics.

Most analyses of banking crises assume that banks use real contracts but in practice contracts are nominal. We consider a standard banking model with aggregate return risk, aggregate liquidity risk and idiosyncratic liquidity shocks. With non-contingent nominal deposit contracts, a decentralized...

Before 2007, financial crises were not widely studied in economics and finance. The lack of importance ascribed to financial stability and our limited knowledge of this topic were significant contributors to the crisis. This paper suggests five areas where new theories are needed. These are...

The financial crisis has generated fundamental reforms in the financial regulatory system in the U.S. and internationally. Much of this reform was in direct response to the weaknesses revealed in the precrisis system. The new “macroprudential” approach to financial regulations focuses on...

The recent crisis has underlined the importance of the interaction of financial innovations and the housing market. We consider five major innovations relevant to housing finance. These are (i) mortgages; (ii) specialised housing finance institutions; (iii) government interventions in housing...

Banks are intrinsically fragile because of their role as liquidity providers. This results in under-provision of liquidity. We analyze the effect of government guarantees on the interconnection between banks' liquidity creation and likelihood of runs in a model of global games, where banks.and...

This study documents significant differences in the interbank market lending and borrowing levels across countries. We argue that the existing differences in interbank market usage can be explained by the trust of the market participants in the stability of the country's banking sector and...

The financial sector is heavily regulated in order to prevent financial crises. The recent crisis showed how ineffective this regulation and other types of government intervention were in achieving this aim. We argue that the crisis was primarily caused by housing price bubbles. These occurred...

Government guarantees to financial institutions are intended to reduce the likelihood of runs and bank failures, but are also usually associated with distortions in banks’ risk taking decisions. We build a model to analyze these trade-offs based on the global-games literature and its...

Banks are intrinsically fragile because of their role as liquidity providers. This results in under-provision of liquidity. We analyze the e¤ect of government guarantees on the interconnection between banks' liquidity creation and likelihood of runs in a model of global games, where banks.and...