I develop a framework of the buildup and outbreak of financial crises in an asymmetric information setting. In equilibrium, two distinct economic states arise endogenously: "normal times", periods of modest investment, and "booms", periods of expansionary investment. Normal times occur when the...

This paper identifies a precautionary banking liquidity shock via a set of sign, zero and forecast variance restrictions imposed. The shock proxies the reluctance of the banking sector to "lend" to the real economy induced by an exogenous change in financial intermediaries' preference for "high"...

A growing literature (i.e. Jaffee, Lynch, Richardson, and Van Nieuwerburgh, 2009, Acharya and Schnabl, 2009) argues that securitization improves financial stability if the securitized assets are held by capital market participants, rather than financial intermediaries. I construct a quantitative...

One of the roots of the recent global financial crisis has been seen in the design of subprime mortgage contract leading to high sensitivity of such type of loans to house price changes. The market of subprime loans, especially in the last years preceding the crisis, has been highly financed by...

We provide empirical evidence of the causal effects of changes in financial intermediaries' net worth on the aggregate economy. Our strategy identifies financial shocks as high-frequency changes in the market value of intermediaries' net worth in a narrow window around their earnings...

Better “financial soundness” of banks could help mitigate the volatility of financial cycles by reducing banks' risk exposure. But trying to improve financial soundness in the midst of a downturn can do the opposite—further aggravating the contraction of credit. Consistent with this...

Banking system crises are complex events that in a short span of time can inflict extensive damage to banks themselves and to the external economy. The crisis liter- ature has so far identified a number of distinct effects or channels that can propagate distress contagiously both directly within...

This paper incorporates banks and banking panics within a conventional macroeconomic framework to analyze the dynamics of a financial crisis of the kind recently experienced. We are particularly interested in characterizing the sudden and discrete nature of the banking panics as well as the...

Shadow banking is a broad concept. A possible definition is that it comprises non-bank institutions which undertake bank-like activities. Another characteristic is that the sector is overall less regulated. Therefore there are still shortcomings in systematic collection of information of the sector.