In this paper, we study the determinants of credit risk in the Greek banking sector. Credit risk is related to bank asset quality and considered responsible for bank failures. In this context, we investigate how loan quality can be explained by accounting and macroeconomic factors. Aggregate...

Credit risk in financial institutions has been widely debated among experts and legislators as a substantial risk to the financial industry's health. In addition to examining bank-specific and macroeconomic reasons, the study examines the impacts of political institutions and macroprudential...

We study a contracting model of leverage and balance sheet size for financial intermediaries that fund their activities through collateralized borrowing. Leverage and balance sheet size increase together when measured risks decrease. When the loss distribution is exponential, the behavior of...

With banking sectors worldwide still suffering from the effects of the financial crisis, public discussion of plans to place toxic assets in one or more bad banks has gained steam in recent weeks. The following paper presents a plan how governments can efficiently relieve ailing banks from toxic...

In responding to the severity and broad scope of the financial crisis that began in 2007, the Federal Reserve has made aggressive use of both traditional monetary policy instruments and innovative tools in an effort to provide liquidity. In this paper, I examine the Fed’s actions in light of...

Freeman (1999) proposes a model in which discount window lending and open market operations have different effects. This is important because in most of the literature, these policies are indistinguishable. However, Freeman’s argument that the central bank should absorb losses associated with...

Liquidity backstops have important implications for financial stability. In this paper, we provide a microfoundation for the important role of liquidity backstops in mitigating runs (or, conversely, the role of the lack of liquidity backstops in exacerbating runs) based on a dynamic model of...

The paper argues that it would be natural to replace the standard normal distribution function by the logistic function in the regulatory Basel II (Vasicek's) formula. Such a model would be in fact consistent with the standard logistic regression PD modeling approach. An empirical study based on...

This paper analyzes the effect of the removal of government guarantees on bank risk taking. We exploit the removal of guarantees for German Landesbanken which results in lower credit ratings, higher funding costs, and a loss in franchise value. This removal was announced in 2001, but...