There is a longstanding debate about whether banking panics and other financial crises always have fundamental causes or are sometimes the result of self-fulfilling beliefs. Disagreement on this point would seem to present a serious obstacle to designing policies that promote financial...

How does the belief that policymakers will bail out investors in the event of a crisis affect the allocation of resources and the stability of the financial system? I study this question in a model of financial intermediation with limited commitment. When a crisis occurs, the efficient policy...

This paper provides a quantitative account of the tri-party repo market during the recent financial crisis. Using data from July 2008 to January 2010, we show that the level of haircuts and the amount of funding were surprisingly stable in this market. The stability of the haircuts contrasts...

We use an information-theoretic approach to describe changes in lending relationships between federal funds market participants around the time of the Lehman Brothers failure. Unlike previous work that conducts maximum-likelihood estimation on undirected networks, our analysis distinguishes...

This paper develops a model of financial institutions that borrow short term and invest in long-term assets that can be traded in frictionless markets. Because these financial intermediaries perform maturity transformation, they are subject to potential runs. We derive distinct liquidity,...

During the Great Recession, the Federal Reserve implemented several novel programs to address adverse conditions in financial markets. Three of these temporary programs relied on an auction mechanism: the Term Auction Facility, the Term Securities Lending Facility, and the disposition of the...

This paper provides a model of systemic panic among financial institutions with heterogeneous fragilities. Concerns about potential spillovers from each other generate strategic interaction among institutions, triggering a preemption game in which one tries to exit the market before the others...

Remarks at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and Pension Real Estate Association's Public-Private Investment Program Summit, New York City.

Remarks at the New York Bankers Association Financial Services Forum, New York City.

Introductory Remarks for the Panel Discussion Sponsored by the Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute and the Economic Club of Minnesota at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.