The financial sector is heavily regulated in order to prevent financial crises. The recent crisis showed how ineffective this regulation and other types of government intervention were in achieving this aim. We argue that the crisis was primarily caused by housing price bubbles. These occurred...

We develop a model where institutions form connections through swaps of projects in order to diversify their individual risk. These connections lead to two different network structures. In a clustered network groups of financial institutions hold identical portfolios and default together. In an...

Three important developments will influence social policy in Germany during the coming century: population aging, a growing mobility and diversity of life and earnings histories, and an increasing awareness of economic incentives even in social policy. We claim that these challenges can only be...

Market discipline for financial institutions can be imposed not only from the liability side, as has often been stressed in the literature on the use of subordinated debt, but also from the asset side. This will be particularly true if good lending opportunities are in short supply, so that...