The extensive public support measures for the financial sector have been key for the management of the current financial crisis. This paper gives a detailed description of the measures taken by central banks and governments and attempts a preliminary assessment of the effectiveness of such...

Banking regulators often practice forbearance and ambiguity in insolvency resolutions. The paper examines the effects of regulatory forbearance and ambiguity in a context of allocational efficiency. Bailouts, liquidations and their stochastic policy mix lead to suboptimal allocations if banks do...

Financial intermediaries may increase economic efficiency through intertemporal risk smoothing. However without an adequate regulation, intermediation may fail to do this. This paper studies the effects of a production shock in a closed economy and compares abilities of market-based and...

Uncertainty and unpredictability faced by low-income households increase their vulnerability making poverty even more unbearable. India¡¦s National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD)-initiated Self-Help Group (SHG) program, which is currently the largest and fastest growing...

We study a politician's choice for state or private control of banks. The choice trades of lobbying contributions against social welfare, weighted by political accountability.Politicians facing few constraints prefer state control to maximize their rents. As state banks are less efficient, at...

Den Landesbanken fehlt ein sinnvolles und tragfähiges Geschäftsmodell. Die internationale Finanzkrise hat dies in aller Schärfe deutlich gemacht. Bereits vor der Abschaffung der umfassenden staatlichen Haftungsbedingungen im Jahr 2005 galten einzelne Kreditinstitute aus der Gruppe der...

Fünf Jahre nach der Abschaffung der umfassenden Haftung für Landesbanken hat sich deren Lage deutlich verschärft. Dazu hat auch die internationale Finanzkrise beigetragen. Einzelne Landesbanken benötigten erhebliche Kapitalspritzen. Inzwischen ist klar, dass eine weitere Konsolidierung im...

This paper tests financial contagion due to interbank linkages. For identification we exploit an idiosyncratic, sudden shock caused by a large-bank failure in conjunction with detailed data on interbank exposures. First, we find robust evidence that higher interbank exposure to the failed bank...

Applying the identification strategy employed by Driscoll (2004) for the United States, this paper provides empirical evidence for the existence of a bank lending channel of monetary policy transmission in the euro area. In addition, and in contrast to recent findings for the US, we find that in...

Heterogeneity in the response of banks to a change in monetary policy is an important element in the transmission of this policy through banks. This paper examines the role of bank liquidity, capitalization and market power as internal factors influencing banks’ reaction in terms of lending...