Government guarantees and financial stability

Banks are intrinsically fragile because of their role as liquidity providers. This results in under-provision of liquidity. We analyze the e¤ect of government guarantees on the interconnection between banks' liquidity creation and likelihood of runs in a model of global games, where banks.and depositors' behavior are endogenous and a¤ected by the amount and form of guarantee. The main insight of our analysis is that guarantees are welfare improving because they induce banks to improve liquidity provision although in a way that sometimes increases the likelihood of runs or creates distortions in banks' behavior.