In financial crises, the premium on liquid assets such as US Treasuries increases alongside credit spreads. This paper explains the link between the liquidity premium and spreads. We present a theory of endogenous bank fragility arising from a coordination friction among bank creditors. The...

How does the presence of decentralized market-based channels for borrowing and lending affect financial integration and financial contagion? To answer this question, I develop a two-country model of financial intermediation, where banks have access to country-specific investment technologies,...

I develop a theory of financial intermediation to explore how the availability of trading opportunities affects the link between the liquidity of financial institutions and their default decisions. In it, banks hedge against liquidity shocks either in the interbank market or by using a costly...

We report evidence that bank liquidity ratios (liquid assets as a percentage of total assets) decrease during the process of economic development. To reconcile this observation with (i) the increasing importance of financial markets and (ii) the increasing direct participation of individual...

We develop a growth model with banks and markets to reconcile the observed decreasing trend in the relative liquidity of many financial systems around the world with the increasing household participation in direct market trades. At low levels of economic development, the presence of fixed entry...