We show that differences in market participants risk aversion can generate herd behavior in stock markets where assets are traded sequentially. This in turn prevents learning of market’s fundamentals. These results are obtained without introducing multidimensional uncertainty or transaction...

We show that differences in market participants risk aversion can generate herd behavior in stock markets where assets are traded sequentially. This in turn prevents learning of market's fundamentals. These results are obtained without introducing multidimensional uncertainty or transaction...

Merton (1974) analysed the risk structure of corporate bonds under the assumption of a flat term structure of interest rates. We clarify his results and extend them to the case of stochastic interest rates. As a consequence we deal simultaneously with interest rate risk and with default risk. We...

Main description: Almost every country in the world has sophisticated systems to prevent banking crises. Yet such crises--and the massive financial and social damage they can cause--remain common throughout the world. Does deposit insurance encourage depositors and bankers to take excessive...

Almost every country in the world has sophisticated systems to prevent banking crises. Yet such crises--and the massive financial and social damage they can cause--remain common throughout the world. Does deposit insurance encourage depositors and bankers to take excessive risks? Are banking...

This Paper studies the efficient pricing of large-value payment systems in the presence of unobservable heterogeneity across banks. It is shown that the optimal pricing scheme for a public monopoly system involves quantity discounts in the form of a decreasing marginal fee. This is also true...