We develop a stochastic dynamic model of bank value maximization under limited liability and in which bankruptcy can occur. Main issues are banks’ optimal responses to regulation and credit-losses. We show that risk-neutral banks behave as if they were risk-averse when they are...

The financial crisis that erupted 2007-2008 has reinforced demand for regulation of banks. The Basle III accord which is to be implemented January first 2013 encompasses two types of regulations with the goal to enforce more prudence among banks. One is capital adequacy regulation which...

Is it a sheer coincidence that the egalitarian Scandinavian countries have significantly larger government employment shares than the much less egalitarian United States? A positive correlation between equality and government employment share in the OECD indicates that it is not a coincidence....

The hypothesis that European unemployment is the rigid relative wage mirror-image of increased wage dispersion in the US is explored. The <p> framework is a two sector –manufacturing and services- model with <p> skilled and unskilled labor. A proxy for skill-biased technical progress (SBTP) is...</p></p>

The large differences among advanced OECD countries in the shares of workers that are employed by the government can probably only to a small part be explained by factors that are in the center of modern organization theory explanations for public vs. private ownership. This paper explores a new...