Banks are optimally opaque institutions. They produce debt for use as a transaction medium (bank money), which requires that information about the backing assets - loans - not be revealed, so that bank money does not fluctuate in value, reducing the efficiency of trade. This need for opacity...

Securitization is a financial innovation that experiences a boom-bust cycle, as many other innovations before. This paper analyzes possible reasons for the breakdown of primary and secondary securitization markets, and argues that misaligned incentives along the value chain are the primary cause...

The lack of access to financial services and to credit in particular is an issue in many developing countries. This paper studies the channels through which new borrowers get access to consumer loans and the effect of repayment data distribution both on that access and on subsequent bank...

This paper analyzes the determinants of the interest rate of short-term unsecured loan inter-bank market (call) in Argentina. The results show that the heterogeneous nature of the entities, in terms of size and origin of ownership, impacts on the interest rate agreed. Other additional aspects,...

O artigo faz uma resenha critica de alguns conceitos da área de economia institucional que são uteis para o estudo das experiências de desenvolvimento endógeno. O objetivo deste artigo é avaliar a estrutura do spread bancário ex-post no Brasil, no período 2000-2008, usando o método de...

We claim that we currently live in a banking regulatory bubble.We review how: i) banking intermediation theory hinges on dealing with borrower-lender asymmetry of information; ii) instead, the presence of complete information is keystone of finance theory. Next, we document how finance theory...

A partir de la segunda mitad de la década de los ochenta Bolivia atravesó un proceso de liberalización del sector bancario con el propósito de alcanzar mayor eficiencia, productividad y rentabilidad que tuvo su mayor intensidad en la década pasada, cuando la banca experimentó profundas...

The article presents calculations that prove practical importance of the earlier derived theoretical relationship between the interest rate on the interbank credit market, volume of investment and the quantity of securities tradable on the stock exchange.

We analyze the debt origination process in which a lender offers prospective borrowers a microcredit product alongside a traditional bank loan, and the impact anti-usury mandates can cause within this credit market. This is a paper about the prospects of financial liberalization following a more...