This paper demonstrates that subordinated debt (‘subdebt’ thereafter) regulation can be an effective mechanism for disciplining banks. Under our proposal, investors buy the subdebt of a bank only if they receive favourable information about the bank, and the bank is subject to a regulatory...

This theoretical paper explores the effects of costly and non-costly collateral on moral hazard, when collateral value may fluctuate. Given that all collateral is costly, stochastic collateral will entail the same positive incentive effects as nonstochastic collateral, provided the variation in...

We consider the impact of mandatory information disclosure on bank safety in a spatial model of banking competition in which a bank’s probability of success depends on the quality of its risk measurement and management systems. Under Basel II capital requirements, this quality is either fully...

There is substantial evidence that new banks and rapidly growing banks are risk prone. We study this problem by designing a relationship-lending model in which a bank operates as a financial intermediary and centralised monitor. In the absence of deposit insurance, the bank’s limited liability...

The paper analyzes bank loan supply in a simple value maximizing partial equilibrium framework. The focus is on the role of bank capital, capital regulation and the pricing of bank liabilities. The model is constructed so as to resemble the situation of the Finnish local banks in the late 1980s...

We consider the joint effect of competition and deposit insurance on risk taking by banks when the riskiness of banks is unobservable to depositors. It turns out that the magnitude of risk taking depends on the type of bank competition. If the bank is a monopoly or banks compete only in the loan...

One of the most important recent innovations in financial markets has been the development of credit derivative products that allow banks to more actively manage their credit portfolios than ever before. We analyse the effect that access to these markets has had on the lending behaviour of a...

The paper examines the determination of bank lending during the Finnish credit boom of 1986–1990 with the data of 483 savings and cooperative banks. A particular objective is to establish whether bank behaviour is consistent with what is called moral hazard hypothesis, according to which banks...

The paper discusses the possibility that the workings of the financial system contributed the boom-bust cycle in the Finnish credit market since the mid-1980s. We begin with a review of the most prominent theoretical arguments about the role of "financial factors". Also the main findings of a...