A popular view of limited liability in financial contracting is that it is the result of societal preferences agnainst excessive penalties. the view of most financial economists is instead that limited liability emerged as an optimal institution when, in the absence of a clear limit on economic...

How do resolution frameworks affect the private restructuring of distressed banks? We model a distressed bank's shareholders and creditors negotiating a restructuring given asymmetric information about asset quality and externalities onto the government. This yields negotiation delays used to...

Amidst a sharp increase in household debt levels, many countries have substantially reformed their consumer bankruptcy regulations. I first classify the mechanisms triggered by current U.S. and European bankruptcy regulations and then evaluate these mechanisms within a hidden action model. I...