Our analysis reveals that banks could develop capital-constrained by holding nonperforming household debts supported by central bank liquidity. We demonstrate the sequential responses to nonperforming assets on retained earnings, capital reserve, and new equity issuance. With capital reserves,...

Banks are unique in that they combine the production of liquid claims with loans. They can replicate most of what FinTech firms can do, but FinTech firms benefit from an uneven playing field in that they are less regulated than banks. The uneven playing field enables non-bank FinTech firms to...

The crypto boom and crash of 2020-22 demonstrated that (i) cryptocurrencies with fluctuating values are extremely risky and highly volatile assets, and (ii) cryptocurrencies known as “stablecoins” are vulnerable to systemic runs whenever there are serious doubts about the adequacy of...

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit InsuranceCorporation (FDIC) have adopted several recent measures that attempt to confer benefits and privileges of banks on nonbank providers of financial services and commercial firms. The OCC’s and FDIC’s...

In the traditional banking system, growth-seeking private firms and households sit separately on the asset and liability sides of a bank’s balance sheet. Fire sales of nonperforming loans are justified to address risk-taking failures and protect household depositors. After households join the...

This letter responds to the U.S. Treasury Department’s request for public comments on President Biden’s Executive Order No. 14067, “Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets” (Mar. 9, 2022). This letter contends that (1) digital stablecoins currently pose significant risks to...

How do changes in market structure impact accessibility to credit? Following the introduction of publicly disclosed Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review stress tests, market shares of affected banks shrunk by about 2.1 pp. Impact significantly differs across regions, with shares dropping an...

In November 2021, the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) issued a report analyzing the rapid expansion and growing risks of the stablecoin market. PWG’s report determined that stablecoins pose a wide range of potential hazards, including the risks of inflicting large losses...

We estimate the impact of household liquidity provision on macroeconomic stabilization using the 2020 CARES Act mortgage forbearance program. We leverage intermediation frictions in forbearance induced by mortgage servicers to identify the effect of reducing short-term payments with little...

The pandemic crisis has accelerated the entry of financial technology (“fintech”) firms into the banking industry. Some of the new fintech banks are owned or controlled by commercial enterprises. Affiliations between commercial firms and fintech banks raise fresh concerns about the dangers...