Many economists and policy-makers believe that bailouts of systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs), though unavoidable ex post, are inefficient ex ante: The expectation of such bailouts is said to lead to moral hazard in the form of excessive risk taking. We argue that this view...

Traditional models of bank runs do not allow for herding effects, because in these models withdrawal decisions are assumed to be made simultaneously. I extend the banking model to allow a depositor to choose his withdrawal time. When he withdraws depends on his liquidity type (patient or...

The basic two-noncooperative-equilibrium-point model of Diamond and Dybvig is considered along with the work of Morris and Shin utilizing the possibility of outside noise to select a unique equilibrium point. Both of these approaches are essentially nondynamic. We add an explicit replicator...

I study equilibrium selection by an evolutionary process in an environment with multiple equilibria, one of which involves a banking panic. The analysis is built on a repeated version of the Diamond-Dybvig (1983) model. The optimal (run free) equilibrium is uniquely selected if it is also "risk...

This paper develops a global game model that allows for a rigorous analysis of partial deposit insurance and provides the first comparative statics of the optimal level of deposit coverage. The optimal amount of coverage increases with lower bank liquidity requirements, with a higher precision...

This paper introduces the possibility of signaling into a finite-depositor version of the Diamond-Dybvig model. More precisely, the decision to keep the funds in the bank is assumed to be unobservable, but depositors are allowed to make it observable by signaling, at a cost. Depositors decide...

We study the Diamond-Dybvig model of fi nancial intermediation (JPE, 1983) under the assumption that depositors have information about previous decisions. Depositors decide sequentially whether to withdraw their funds or continue holding them in the bank. If depositors observe the history of all...

We set up an experimental coordination game among bank depositors à la Diamond and Dybvig (1983). We elicit subjects' financial literacy and study the impact of revealing this information on the coordination problem typical of this game with multiple equilibria. We find that when no information...

We provide experimental evidence that panic bank runs occur in the absence of problems with fundamentals and coordination failures among depositors, the two main culprits identified in the literature. Depositors withdraw when they observe that others do so, even when theoretically they should...

This paper analyzes panic purchases of goods during crises such as a pandemic. Our two-period model incorporates uncertainty about sellers' capacity and about buyers' need for the good. Even if sellers have enough capacity to satisfy demand, there may be shortages because consumers panic...