This paper analyzes how different types of bank funding affect the extent to which banks ration credit to borrowers, and the impact that capital requirements have on that rationing. Using an extension of the standard Stiglitz-Weiss model of credit rationing, unsecured wholesale finance is shown...

This paper studies the welfare properties of competitive equilibria in an economy with financial frictions hit by aggregate shocks. In particular, it shows that competitive financial contracts can result in excessive borrowing ex ante and excessive volatility ex post. Even though, from a...

This paper studies the impact of higher bank capital requirements on corporate lending spreads. We conduct an empirical analysis using granular bank- and loan-level data for Switzerland. Overall, we find a positive relationship between capital ratios, actual and required, and lending spreads....

We propose a model of financial system architecture that highlights the positive interaction between banks and markets in a setting where each agent believes that she can evaluate information better than any other agent. Banks emerge endogenously and their interaction with markets is facilitated...

We explore an inconsistency in the Basel Committee's Internal Ratings Based (IRB) rules: the IRB rules on corporate loans were calibrated to loan-level data, while the IRB rules on small business loans were calibrated with little, if any, information on small business loans. We argue that the...