Rather than taking on more risk, US insurers hit hard by the crisis pulled back from risk taking, relative to insurers hit less hard by the crisis. Capital requirements alone do not explain this risk reduction: insurers hit hard reduced risk within assets with identical regulatory treatment....

The work of Diamond and Dybvig, 1983 is commonly understood as a theory of bank runs driven by self-fulfilling prophecies. Their contribution may alternatively be interpreted as a theory for preventing these bank runs. Absent aggregate risk over liquidity demand, they show that a simple scheme...

Deposit insurance is widely offered in a number of countries as part of a financial system safety net to promote stability. An unintended consequence of deposit insurance is the reduction in the incentive of depositors to monitor banks, which leads to excessive risk-taking. This paper examines...