Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/60889 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
Staff Report No. 519
Publisher: 
Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York, NY
Abstract: 
There is a longstanding debate about whether banking panics and other financial crises always have fundamental causes or are sometimes the result of self-fulfilling beliefs. Disagreement on this point would seem to present a serious obstacle to designing policies that promote financial stability. However, we show that the appropriate choice of policy is invariant to the underlying cause of banking panics in some situations. In our model, the anticipation of being bailed out in the event of a crisis distorts the incentives of financial institutions and their investors. Two policies that aim to correct this distortion are compared: restricting policymakers from engaging in bailouts, and allowing bailouts but taxing the short-term liabilities of financial institutions. We find that the latter policy yields higher equilibrium welfare regardless of whether panics are sometimes caused by self-fulfilling beliefs.
Subjects: 
banking panics
financial regulation
bailouts
JEL: 
E61
G21
G28
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
279.03 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.