This paper identifies two types of market failures. The first concerns a coordination problem associated with panics. The problem in analysing this type of market failure from a policy perspective is that there is no widely accepted method for selecting equilibria. The second market failure...

In countries such as Germany, the legal system ensures that firms are stakeholder oriented. In others, like Japan, social norms achieve a similar effect. We analyze the advantages and disadvantages of stakeholder-oriented firms that are concerned with employees and suppliers compared to...

The purpose of this paper is to use insights from the academic literature on crises to understand the role of liquidity in the current crisis. We focus on four of the crucial features of the crisis that we argue are related to liquidity provision. The first is the fall of the prices of AAA-rated...

The banking sector is one of the most highly regulated sectors in the economy. However,in contrast to other regulated sectors there is no wide agreement on the market failuresthat justify regulation. We suggest that there are two important ones. The first is a coordination problem that arises...

When liquidity plays an important role as in times of financial crisis, asset prices in some markets may reflect the amount of liquidity available in the market rather than the future earning power of the asset. Mark-to-market accounting is not a desirable way to assess the solvency of a...

Some have argued that recent increases in credit risk transfer are desirable because they improve the diversification of risk. Others have suggested that they may be undesirable if they increase the risk of financial crises. Using a model with banking and insurance sectors, we show that credit...

It is commonly believed that equity finance for banks is more costly than deposits. This suggests that banks should economize on the use of equity and regulatory constraints on capital should be binding. Empirical evidence suggests that in fact this is not the case. Banks in many countries hold...

The authors examine the legal and business environments, financing channels, and governance mechanisms of various types of firms in India and compare them to those from other countries. Despite its English commonlaw origin, strong legal protection provided by the law, and a democratic...

We provide a comprehensive review of China's financial system, and explore directions of future development. First, the current financial system is dominated by a large banking sector. In recent years banks have made considerable progress in reducing the amount of non-performing loans and...

With recent growth rates among large countries second only to China's, India has experienced nothing short of an economic transformation since the liberalization process began in the early 1990's. In the last few years, with a soaring stock market, significant foreign portfolio inflows including...