We analyse credit market equilibrium when banks screen loan applicants. When banks have a convex cost function of screening, a pure strategy equilibrium exists where banks optimally set interest rates at the same level as their competitors. This result complements Broecker`s (1990) analysis,...

Deposit insurance schemes are becoming increasingly popular around the world and yet there is little understanding of how they should be designed and what their consequences are. In this paper we provide a new rationale for the provision of deposit insurance. We analyse a model in which agents...

We consider an economy in which banks increase social welfare by monitoring but where the verifiable part of banking income is stochastic. Banks abstract non-verifiable returns and this can render banking contracts unattractive to investors. The survival of the banking sector is ensured by a...

In human capital intensive industries where it is difficult to contract upon the training effort of skilled agents a socially suboptimal level of training may occur. We show how partnership organisations can overcome this problem by tying human and financial capital. Partnerships are opaque so...

It is received financial wisdom that when there is free entry by speculators, it is impossible to generate net profits on publicly available information. In this paper we study a version of the standard Kyle (85) model with endogenous information acquisition and we find that equilibria exist...

We analyse a general equilibrium model in which there is both adverse selection of and moral hazard by banks. The regulator has several tools at her disposal to combat these problems. She can audit banks to learn their type prior to giving them a licence, she can audit them ex post to learn the...

We analyse a model in which bank deposits are insured and there is an exogenous cost of bank capital. The former effect results in bank overinvestment and the latter in underinvestment. Regulatory capital requirements introduce investment distortions which are a constrained optimal response to...

The credit derivatives market provides a liquid but opaque forum for secondary market trading of banking assets. I show that when entrepreneurs rely upon the certification value of bank debts to obtain cheap bond market insurance, the existance of a credit derivatives market may cause them to...

Until 1970, the New York Stock Exchange prohibited public incorporation of member firms. After the rules were relaxed to allow joint stock firm membership, investment-banking concerns organized as partnerships or closely-held private corporations went public in waves, with Goldman Sachs (1999)...

We investigate the optimal regulation of financial conglomerates which combine a bank and a non-bank financial institution. The conglomerate`s risk-taking incentives depend upon the level of market discipline it faces, which in turn is determined by the conglomerate`s liability structure. We...