"Does too much competition in banking hurt society? What policies can best protect and stabilize banking without stifling it? Institutional responses to such questions have evolved over time, from interventionist regulatory control after the Great Depression to the liberalization policies that...

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....

We present a quantitative model of deposit insurance. We characterize the policymaker's optimal choices of coverage for depositors and premiums raised from banks. Premiums contribute to a deposit insurance fund that lowers taxpayers' resolution cost of bank failures. We find that riskadjusted...