When a bank is a relationship lender, its financial health affects its borrowers' access to credit. If regulators or depositors might close a bank, it will take any action necessary to remain open. This leads to excessive foreclosure of the bank's relationship-based loans or to the bank's...

To address the moral hazard problem that can motivate bank executives to take excessive risks and to fail to raise capital when needed, a group of 13 distinguished financial economists recommends that systemically important financial institutions be required to issue contingent convertible debt...