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Does "Skin in the Game" Reduce Risk Taking? Leverage, Liability, and the Long-run Consequences of the New Deal Banking Reforms

In: The Microeconomics of New Deal Policy

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  • Kris James Mitchener
  • Gary Richardson

Abstract

This essay examines how the Banking Acts of the 1933 and 1935 and related New Deal legislation influenced risk taking in the financial sector of the U.S. economy. The analysis focuses on contingent liability of bank owners for losses incurred by their firms and how the elimination of this liability influenced leverage and lending by commercial banks. Using a new panel data set, we find contingent liability reduced risk taking. In states with contingent liability, banks used less leverage and converted each dollar of capital into fewer loans, and thus could survive larger loan losses (as a fraction of their portfolio) than banks in limited liability states. In states with limited liability, banks took on more leverage and risk, particularly in states that required banks with limited liability to join the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. In the long run, the New Deal replaced a regime of contingent liability with deposit insurance, stricter balance sheet regulation, and increased capital requirements, shifting the onus of risk management from bankers to state and federal regulators.
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  • Kris James Mitchener & Gary Richardson, 2012. "Does "Skin in the Game" Reduce Risk Taking? Leverage, Liability, and the Long-run Consequences of the New Deal Banking Reforms," NBER Chapters, in: The Microeconomics of New Deal Policy, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:13198
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    Cited by:

    1. Moreira, Fernando, 2022. "Are we living in an illusion? A fresh look at the importance of bank capital in the quest for stability," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    2. Howard Bodenhorn, 2015. "Double Liability at Early American Banks," NBER Working Papers 21494, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Alaa Alaabed & Mansur Masih & Abbas Mirakhor, 2016. "Investigating risk shifting in Islamic banks in the dual banking systems of OIC member countries: An application of two-step dynamic GMM," Risk Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 18(4), pages 236-263, December.
    4. Grodecka-Messi, Anna & Kenny, Seán & Ögren, Anders, 2021. "Predictors of bank distress: The 1907 crisis in Sweden," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    5. Haelim Anderson & Gary Richardson & Brian Yang, 2023. "Deposit Insurance and Depositor Monitoring: Quasi‐Experimental Evidence from the Creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(2-3), pages 441-464, March.
    6. Jenter, Dirk & Aldunate, Felipe & Korteweg, Arthur & Koudijs, Peter, 2021. "Shareholder Liability and Bank Failure," CEPR Discussion Papers 16309, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Joshua R. Hendrickson, 2014. "Contingent Liability, Capital Requirements, and Financial Reform," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 34(1), pages 129-144, Winter.
    8. Guinnane, Timothy W. & Schneebacher, Jakob, 2020. "Enterprise form: Theory and history," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    9. Bogle, David A. & Campbell, Gareth & Coyle, Christopher & Turner, John D., 2022. "Why did shareholder liability disappear?," QUCEH Working Paper Series 22-12, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    10. Grodecka, Anna & Kotidis, Antonis, 2016. "Double Liability in a Branch Banking System: Historical Evidence from Canada," Working Paper Series 316, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    11. Jonathan D. Rose, 2015. "Old-Fashioned Deposit Runs," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-111, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    12. Peter Koudijs & Laura Salisbury & Gurpal Sran, 2021. "For Richer, for Poorer: Bankers' Liability and Bank Risk in New England, 1867 to 1880," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(3), pages 1541-1599, June.
    13. Salter, Alexander W. & Veetil, Vipin & White, Lawrence H., 2017. "Extended shareholder liability as a means to constrain moral hazard in insured banks," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 153-160.
    14. Haelim Anderson & Daniel Barth & Dong Beom Choi, 2018. "Reducing moral hazard at the expense of market discipline: the effectiveness of double liability before and during the Great Depression," Staff Reports 869, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    15. Howard Bodenhorn, 2014. "Voting Rights, Shareholdings, and Leverage at Nineteenth-Century U.S. Banks," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(2), pages 431-458.
    16. Sabaté, Marcela & Fillat, Carmen & Escario, Regina, 2019. "Budget deficits and money creation: Exploring their relation before Bretton Woods," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 38-56.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G33 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Bankruptcy; Liquidation
    • N22 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

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