The paper analyzes a very stylized model of crises and demonstrates how the degree of strategic complementarity in the actions of investors is a critical determinant of fragility. It is shown how the balance sheet composition of a financial intermediary, parameters of the information structure...

Securitization allows the recycling of scarce bank capital but exacerbates the moral hazard problem inherent in banks' private choices of loan monitoring. In a model combining these aspects of the securitization market, I show that an appropriately-designed proportional retention requirement, if...

Asset-backed securitization (ABS) may contribute to generating instability in financial markets both through an 'inside effect' in the banking system – facilitating progressive deterioration of bank assets' quality – and through an ‘outside effect' – favoring credit risk transfer from...

Especially structured finance instruments were blamed as main reason for the financial crisis 2007, but the understanding for the motivation to originate securitization products is less discovered. Therefor this paper tries to identify main balance sheet characteristics of structured finance...

Two factors have proven to be strongly relevant for the subprime mortgage crisis. The first is the lack of screening incentives of originators, which had not been anticipated by investors. The second is that investors relied too much on credit ratings. We examine whether investors have learned...

Lack of transparency in securitization transactions significantly contributed to the severe financial crisis of 20072009. To increase transparency we propose a new mechanism: financial claims with fingerprints. They would allow market participants at each stage of the securitization process to...

Two factors have proven to be strongly relevant for the subprime mortgage crisis. The first is the lack of screening incentives of originators, which had not been anticipated by investors. The second is that investors relied too much on credit ratings. We examine whether investors have learned...

This article takes a look at the major accounting policies pertinent to risk management functions of banks internationally and in India. It benchmarks the Indian policies against those internationally on three parameters. It finds wide divergence in policies in Indian banks versus...

We study credit ratings on subprime and Alt-A mortgage-backed-securities (MBS) deals issued between 2001 and 2007, the period leading up to the subprime crisis. The fraction of highly rated securities in each deal is decreasing in mortgage credit risk (measured either ex ante or ex post),...