We study bailouts of banks that suffer from debt overhang problems and have private information about the quality of their assets-in-place and new investment opportunities. Menus of bailout plans are used as a screening device. Constrained-optimality involves over capitalization and nonlinear...

We propose a model with incomplete information where a distressed bank asks its creditor, a healthy bank, to reduce its debt. Given the information disclosed by the regulator about the asset quality of the distressed bank and its possible bailout by the government, the healthy bank can accept or...

We show the anticipation of a bailout of distressed firms worsens ex ante adverse selection, causing a market freeze and inviting government intervention - a "bailout trap." When firms of heterogenous qualities raise financing, high-quality firms are willing to bear adverse selection costs...

We examine sources of systemic risk (threshold size, complexity, and interconnectedness) with factors constructed from equity returns of large financial firms, after accounting for standard risk factors. From the factor loadings and factor returns, we estimate the implicit government subsidy for...

The recent crisis was characterized by massive illiquidity. This paper reviews what we know and don't know about illiquidity and all its friends: market freezes, fire sales, contagion, and ultimately insolvencies and bailouts. It first explains why liquidity cannot easily be apprehended through...