This paper presents a model of bank risk taking and government guarantees. Levered banks take excessive risk, as their actions are not fully priced at the margin by debt holders. The impact of government guarantees on bank risk taking depends critically on the portion of bank investors that can...

Evidence indicates that private equity funds, unlike mutual funds, deliver persistent abnormal returns and that the top performing funds are often oversubscribed. Why do private equity funds appear to leave money on the table, rather than increasing fund size? We argue that private equity funds...

Loan guarantees represent a form of government intervention to support bank lending. However, their use raises concerns as to their effect on bank risk-taking incentives. In a model of financial fragility that incorporates bank capital and a bank incentive problem, we show that loan guarantees...

In many countries, the legal system or social norms ensure that firms are stakeholder oriented. We analyze the advantages and disadvantages of stakeholder-oriented firms that are concerned with employees and suppliers compared to shareholder-oriented firms in a model of imperfect competition....

In a model with bankruptcy costs and segmented deposit and equity markets, we endogenize the cost of equity and deposit finance for banks. Despite risk neutrality, equity capital earns a higher expected return than direct investment in risky assets. Banks hold positive capital to reduce...