We study a model of bank runs based on Diamond and Dybvig [1983]. We assume that agents do not have common knowledge regarding the fundamentals of the economy, but rather receive slightly noisy signals. The new model has a unique equilibrium in which the fundamentals determine whether a bank run...

Banks are intrinsically fragile because of their role as liquidity providers. This results in under-provision of liquidity. We analyze the effect of government guarantees on the interconnection between banks' liquidity creation and likelihood of runs in a model of global games, where banks' and...

Various laws and policy proposals call for regulators to make use of the information reflected in market prices. We focus on a leading example of such a proposal, namely that bank supervision should make use of the market prices of traded bank securities. We study the theoretical underpinnings...

We study how heterogeneity in banks’ asset holdings affects fragility. In the model, banks face a risk of bank runs and have to liquidate long-term assets in a common market to repay runners. Liquidation prices are depressed when many banks sell their assets at the same time. When banks are...

We review various costs and benefits of disclosure of stress test results and the models behind the tests and provide unified frameworks to evaluate the tradeoffs. We also review the evolution of practice on the disclosure of stress test results over the years and caution against the link...

Using the implementation of the EDGAR system from 1993 to 1996 as a shock to information dissemination technologies, we examine the potential benefits and costs of modern information technologies on the real economy. On the one hand, we document that broader information dissemination leads to a...

Financial markets have a central role in allocating resources in modern economies. One of the main functions of financial markets is the discovery of information. This information in turn helps guide decisions in the real side of the economy. The literature on the “feedback effect” of...

In this paper, we show the benefits of bank asset diversification for the economy. A more diversified stream of earnings enables banks to better absorb negative shocks, leading to increased and more stable lending. This, in turn, provides positive spillovers to the economy. We demonstrate that...