This paper studies a modern monetary economy: trade in both goods and securities relies on money provided by intermediaries. While money is valued for its liquidity, its creation requires costly leverage. Inflation, security prices and the transmission of monetary policy then depend on the...

I study the effect of interest rates on banks' lending standards. I find that low (high) interest rates discourage (encourage) screening but facilitate (hinder) effort provision. Less screening, as a result of low interest rates, increases the likelihood of a banking crisis. I further show that...

I study the effect of interest rates on banks' lending standards and find that low (high) interest rates discourage (encourage) screening but facilitate (hinder) effort provision. Less screening as a result of low interest rates increases the likelihood of a banking crisis. I further show that...

Banks provide risky loans to firms which have superior information regarding the quality of their projects. Due to asymmetric information the banks face the risk of adverse selection. Credit Value-at-Risk (CVaR) regulation counters the problem of low quality, i.e. high risk, loans and therefore...

The impact of technology-enabled (FinTech) lenders on bank credit is theoretically ambiguous. Banks can reduce credit if borrowing from FinTech lenders increases default risk. Alternatively, banks can provide more credit if such borrowing signals creditworthiness. I examine these possibilities...

The peer-to-peer loan market was designed to bring together borrowers and lenders without banks as middlemen. Yet over time P2P lending platforms have evolved into new intermediaries, performing essentially all tasks related to loan evaluation. By contrast, lenders are overwhelmingly passive and...

Two of the most prominent Japanese corporate governance scholars, Professors Miwa and Ramseyer (‘M&R'), have recently published numerous articles and a book setting out their contrarian free-market theory of Japanese corporate governance. According to their theory, contemporary Japanese...

The author studies the terms of credit in a competitive market in which sellers are willing to repeatedly finance the purchases of buyers by extending direct credit. Lenders (sellers) can commit to deliver any long-term credit contract that does not result in a payoff that is lower than that...

We establish that a monopoly bank never uses collateral as a screening device. A pooling equilibrium always exists in which all borrowers pay the same interest rate and put zero collateral. Absence of screening leads to socially inefficient lending in the sense that some socially productive...

The Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) System is a large, complex, and understudied government-sponsored liquidity facility that currently has more than $1 trillion in secured loans outstanding, mostly to commercial banks and thrifts. This paper first documents the significant role played by the FHLB...