The changing nature of debt and equity; a financial perspective

Debt ; Securities ; Corporations - Finance

The Efficiency and Stability of Banks and Markets

Traditionally, financial systems have been bank-based or market-based. The efficiency properties of these systems are compared in various dimensions. These include risk sharing, information provision, funding new industries, corporate governance, and law, finance and politics. Both systems have advantages and disadvantages. With regard to stability, both bank-based and market-based systems are subject to crises. Going forward a financial system with financial intermediaries and markets would have many advantages and few disadvantages.

Do Financial Institutions Matter?

In standard asset pricing theory, investors are assumed to invest directly in financial markets. The role of financial institutions is ignored. The focus in corporate finance is on agency problems. How do you ensure that managers act in shareholders' interests? There is an inconsistency in assuming that when you give your money to a financial institution there is no agency problem but when you give it to a firm there is. It is argued both areas need to take proper account of the role of financial institutions and markets. Appropriate concepts for analyzing particular situations should be used.

The Future of the Japanese Financial System

The purpose of this paper is to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the Japanese financial system and to propose possible changes for the future. The apparent reversal in opinions on the effectiveness of the Japanese and US financial systems in recent years suggests a long term view should be taken. All financial systems have problems in the short term and it is important not to put too much weight on these. Section 2 briefly considers the historical development and the current differences between the Japanese and US financial systems. Section 3 considers the functions of a financial system and how the Japanese and US systems have performed these functions. Suggestions for reforms for Japan are outlined in Section 4 and Section 5 contains concluding remarks. This paper was presented at the Financial Institutions Center's October 1996 conference on "

Mark-to-market accounting and liquidity pricing

When liquidity plays an important role as in times of financial crisis, asset prices in some markets may reflect the amount of liquidity available in the market rather than the future earning power of the asset. Mark-to-market accounting is not a desirable way to assess the solvency of a financial institution in such circumstances. We show that a shock in the insurance sector can cause the current value of banks’ assets to be less than the current value of their liabilities so the banks are insolvent. In contrast, if historic cost accounting is used, banks are allowed to continue and can meet all their future liabilities. Mark-to-market accounting can thus lead to contagion where none would occur with historic cost accounting. Klassifizierung: G21, G22, M4

Credit risk transfer and contagion

Some have argued that recent increases in credit risk transfer are desirable because they improve the diversification of risk. Others have suggested that they may be undesirable if they increase the risk of financial crises. Using a model with banking and insurance sectors, we show that credit risk transfer can be beneficial when banks face uniform demand for liquidity. However, when they face idiosyncratic liquidity risk and hedge this risk in an interbank market, credit risk transfer can be detrimental to welfare. It can lead to contagion between the two sectors and increase the risk of crises. Klassifikation: G21, G2

Rational Finite Bubbles

There has been a long-running debate about whether stock market prices are determined by fundamentals. To date no consensus has been reached. An important issue in this debate concerns the circumstances in which deviations from fundamentals are consistent with rational behavior. A continuous-time example where there are a finite number of rational traders with finite wealth is presented. it is shown that a finitely-lived security can trade above its fundamental.

Diversity of Opinion and Financing of New Technologies

The objective is to compare the effectiveness of financial markets and financial intermediaries in financing new industries and technologies in the presence of diversity of opinion. In markets, investors become informed about the details of the new industry or technology and make their own investment decisions. In intermediaries, the investment decision is delegated to a manager. She is the only one who needs to become informed, which saves on information costs, but investors may anticipate disagreement with her and be unwilling to provide funds. Financial markets tend to be superior when there is significant diversity of opinion and information is inexpensive.

Optimal Financial Crises

Empirical evidence suggests that banking panics are a natural outgrowth of the business cycle. In other words panics are not simply the result of "sunspots" or self-fulfilling prophecies. Panics occur when depositors perceive that the returns on the bank's assets are going to be unusually low. In this paper we develop a simple model of this type of panic. In this setting bank runs can be incentive-efficient: they allow more efficient risk sharing between depositors who withdraw early and those who withdraw late and they allow banks to hold more efficient portfolios. Central bank intervention to eliminate panics can lower the welfare of depositors. However there is a role for the central bank to prevent costly liquidation of real assets by injecting money into the banking system during a panic.