This paper analyses how the risk-sharing capacity of the financial system varies over the business cycle, leading to procyclical fragility. We show how financial imperfections contribute to underinsurance by entrepreneurs, generating an externality that leads to the build-up of systematic risk...

We present a general equilibrium model of intermediation designed to capture some of the key features of the modern financial system. The model incorporates financial constraints and state-contingent contracts, and captures the spillovers associated with asset fire sales during periods of...

This paper presents a theoretical model of international bank lending that may explain quot;herd-likequot; behaviour in lending to LDCs. The model assumes that there is a central money-centre bank whose behaviour influences that of regional banks by virtue of the fact that the regional bank can...

Recent debate on the reform of the international financial architecture has highlighted the potentially important role of the official sector in crisis management. This paper examines how such public intervention in sovereign debt crises affects efficiency, ex ante and ex post. The results shed...

We present a general equilibrium model of intermediation designed to capture some of the key features of the modern financial system. The model incorporates financial constraints and state-contingent contracts, and contains a clearly defined pecuniary externality associated with asset fire sales...

We use financial information on banks from Asia, Europe, North America and Oceania to examine the role of wholesale funding on the transmission of financial crises to bank lending, as well as to study the response of financial institutions in different regions during the crises. We consider the...

This book opens new ground in the study of financial crises. It treats the financial system as a complex adaptive system and shows how lessons from network disciplines - such as ecology, epidemiology, and statistical mechanics - shed light on our understanding of financial stability. Using tools...