This brief exposition suggests that the Federal Reserve System temporarily guarantee a lower bound on stock prices in order to escape the current combination of liquidity trap and credit crunch. It shortly discusses reasons for this measure, consequences, and some alternatives. It is meant as a...

The disaster myopia hypothesis is a theoretical argument that may explain why crises are a recurrent event. Under very optimistic circumstances, investors disregard any relevant information concerning the increasing degree of risk. Agents' propensity to underestimate the probability of adverse...

This paper argues that financial links between agents may lead to the resilience or to the contagion of financial distress. Our model details the real effects of agents' beliefs on the resilience of the economy. When the economy is connected enough, it is subject to an unstable equilibrium. Our...

Bank liability guarantee schemes have traditionally been viewed as costless measures to shore up investor confidence and stave off bank runs. However, as the experience of some European countries, most notably Ireland, has demonstrated, the credibility and effectiveness of these guarantees is...

This paper reconsiders the principal's problem of determining the optimal combination of risk taking and information dissemination, when threatened with a coordinated speculative attack on the fixed exchange rate by traders, respectively a coordinated withdrawal of credits by a group of lenders....