This paper examines common regulation as cause of interbank contagion. Studies based on the correlation of bank assets and the extent of interbank lending may underestimate the likelihood of contagion because they do not incorporate the fact that banks have a common regulator. In our model, the...

Banks can take costly actions (such as higher capitalization, liquidity holding, and advanced risk management) to fend off runs. While such actions directly affect bank risks, they can also serve as signals of the banks’ fundamentals. A separating equilibrium due to such signaling, however,...

At the beginning of the past financial crisis sponsoring banks rescued their structured investment vehicles (SIVs) despite of lack of contractual obligation to do so. I show that this outcome may arise as the equilibrium of a signaling game between banks and their debt investors when a negative...

Business cycles imply liquidity risks for banks. This paper explores how these risks influence bank lending over the cycle. With forward-looking banks, lending cycles, credit booms and busts, or suppressed and highly fragile bank systems can emerge, depending on the magnitude of liquidity risks....

A bank's decision on loan supply and capital structure determines its immediate bankruptcy risk as well as the future availability of internal funds. These internal funds in turn determine a bank's future costs of external finance and future vulnerability to bankruptcy risks. We study these...