Bank Resolution, Risk-Taking and Claimholders’ Bargaining Power

We analyze the influence of unsecured debt (subdebt) on risk-shifting in banks whose assets are risky debt claims. We assume that the stockholders and subdebt-holders jointly decide on risk-shifting. We show that replacing part of the stock with subdebt: (1) leads to fewer risk-shifting events, but can lead to higher levels of risk, depending on the relative bargaining power, (2) does not change the level of risk-shifting when side payments are possible, and (3) may yield the surprising result that risk-shifting increases with tighter regulatory control.