In recent years, reducing poverty has been a core objective of social policy in Latin America. In2008, the incidence of poverty reached almost a third of the population, of which 13 percent areclassified as extremely poor. Most Latin American countries have invested vast resources inpoverty...

We study a monetary, general equilibrium economy in which banks exist because they provide intertemporal insurance to risk-averse depositors. A ""banking crisis"" is defined as a case in which banks exhaust their reserve assets. Under different model specifications, the banking industry is...

This paper conducts a theoretical and quantitative analysis of how entrepreneurs choose firm size, capital structure, default, and owner consumption to manage firm risk, including how these choices change with risk aversion. We decompose an entrepreneur’s default decision into three elements:...

In this paper a bank faces excess demand in the loan market, can sort loan applicants by an observable measure of quality, and faces a small but positive probability of default. The bank uses two policies to allocate credit: (i) tighten restrictions on loan quality; (ii) limit the number of...