In moral hazard models, bank shareholders have incentives to transfer wealth from the deposit insurer - that is, maximize put option value - by pursuing riskier strategies. For safe banks with large charter value, however, the risk-taking incentive is outweighed by the possibility of losing...

[Deposit insurance involves catastrophe risk because bank failures spike during a banking crisis. Although mutual insurance is ill-suited for catastrophe risk, the U.S. government structures deposit insurance like a mutual company owned by policyholders. The mutual structure produces several...