Economic agents pursue government funds using political connections, but it is sometimes unclear which types of connections and whose connections matter, and which agents have opportunities to benefit. We address these issues for the over one-half-trillion-dollar Paycheck Protection Program...

High levels of subprime consumer debt can create social problems. We test the effects of the TARP and PPP bailouts during the Global Financial Crisis and COVID-19 crisis, respectively, on this debt. We use over 11-million credit-bureau observations of individual consumer debt combined with...

High levels of subprime consumer debt can create social problems. We test the effects of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) bailouts during the Global Financial Crisis and COVID-19 crisis, respectively, on this debt. We use over 11 million credit...

The recent financial crisis highlights the importance of both regulatory and market discipline. Government reactions to the crisis included expanding deposit insurance coverage and rescuing troubled institutions, including some institutions that might not otherwise be considered too important to...

Bank bailouts are not the "one-shot" events commonly described in the literature. These bailouts are instead dynamic processes in which regulators "catch" financially distressed banks; "restrict" their activities over time; and "release" the banks from restrictions at sufficiently healthy capital...

We address two key issues concerning bank bailout effects on depositor and bank behavior. The first is whether bailouts weaken or strengthen market discipline by depositors through deposit supplies. The second is if bailed-out banks decrease or increase their deposit demands. These questions can...

Governments provide guarantees to banks, such as deposit insurance, often increasing them during financial crises. While risk effects are well researched, impacts on bank output remain largely unexplored. We investigate bank output effects using data from 75 countries on bank liquidity creation,...

We model dynamic bank capital structure under three optimally-designed regulatory regimes dealing with potential default { bailout, where government provides capital; bail-in, using private-sector funds; and no regulatory intervention, allowing failure. Only under optimally designed bail-in do...

We examine how bank efficiency during normal times affects survival, risk, and profitability during subsequent financial crises using data from five U.S. financial crises and preceding normal times. We find cost efficiency during normal times helps reduce bank failure probabilities, decrease...