IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/15884.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Contingent Contracts in Banking: Insurance or Risk Magnification?

Author

Listed:
  • Gersbach, Hans

Abstract

What happens when banks compete with deposit and loan contracts contingent on macroeconomic shocks? We show that the private sector insures the banking system efficiently against banking crises through such contracts when banks focus on expected profit maximization and failing banks go bankrupt. When risks are large, banks may shift part of the risk to depositors who receive state-contingent contracts. Repackaging of the risk among depositors can improve welfare. In contrast, when failing banks are rescued, new phenomena such as risk creation or magnification emerge, which would not occur with non-contingent contracts. In particular, depositors receive non-contingent contracts with comparatively high interest rates, while entrepreneurs obtain loan contracts that demand high repayment in good times and low repayment in bad times. As a result, banks overinvest and generate large macroeconomic risks, even if the underlying productivity risk is small or zero.

Suggested Citation

  • Gersbach, Hans, 2021. "Contingent Contracts in Banking: Insurance or Risk Magnification?," CEPR Discussion Papers 15884, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15884
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP15884
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Repullo, Rafael & Suarez, Javier, 1998. "Monitoring, Liquidation, and Security Design," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 11(1), pages 163-187.
    2. Carmen M. Reinhart & Graciela L. Kaminsky, 1999. "The Twin Crises: The Causes of Banking and Balance-of-Payments Problems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 473-500, June.
    3. Carmen M. Reinhart & Graciela L. Kaminsky, 1999. "The Twin Crises: The Causes of Banking and Balance-of-Payments Problems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 473-500, June.
    4. Robert J. Shiller, 2003. "Social Security and Individual Accounts as Elements of Overall Risk-Sharing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 343-347, May.
    5. Merton, Robert C., 1977. "An analytic derivation of the cost of deposit insurance and loan guarantees An application of modern option pricing theory," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 3-11, June.
    6. Mathias Dewatripont & Jean Tirole, 1994. "The prudential regulation of banks," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/9539, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    7. Kareken, John H & Wallace, Neil, 1978. "Deposit Insurance and Bank Regulation: A Partial-Equilibrium Exposition," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(3), pages 413-438, July.
    8. Charles W. Calomiris & Matthew Jaremski, 2016. "Deposit Insurance: Theories and Facts," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 97-120, October.
    9. Xavier Vives, 2016. "Competition and Stability in Banking: The Role of Regulation and Competition Policy," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10741.
    10. Freixas, Xavier & Laeven, Luc & Peydró, José-Luis, 2015. "Systemic Risk, Crises, and Macroprudential Regulation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262028697, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Burnside, Craig & Eichenbaum, Martin & Rebelo, Sergio, 2001. "Hedging and financial fragility in fixed exchange rate regimes," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 1151-1193.
    2. Hans Gersbach, 2008. "Banking with Contingent Contracts, Macroeconomic Risks, and Banking Crises," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 08/93, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    3. Gruben, William C. & McComb, Robert P., 2003. "Privatization, competition, and supercompetition in the Mexican commercial banking system," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 229-249, February.
    4. Ernest Dautovic, 2019. "Has Regulatory Capital Made Banks Safer? Skin in the Game vs Moral Hazard," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 19.03, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    5. Stijn Claessens & M. Ayhan Kose, 2013. "Financial Crises: Explanations, Types and Implications," CAMA Working Papers 2013-06, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    6. Heinrich, Ralph P. & Buch, Claudia M., 1999. "Handling Banking Crises - The Case of Russia," Kiel Working Papers 920, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    7. Concetta Chiuri, Maria & Ferri, Giovanni & Majnoni, Giovanni, 2002. "The macroeconomic impact of bank capital requirements in emerging economies: Past evidence to assess the future," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 881-904, May.
    8. Saoussen Ben Gamra & Dominique Plihon, 2007. "Qualité Des Institutions, Libéralisation Et Crises Bancaires Le Cas Des Pays Émergents," Working Papers hal-00574136, HAL.
    9. Sophie Claeys, & Gleb Lanine & Koen Schoors, 2005. "Bank Supervision Russian style: Rules versus Enforcement and Tacit Objectives," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp778, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    10. Burnside, Craig & Eichenbaum, Martin & Rebelo, Sergio, 2004. "Government guarantees and self-fulfilling speculative attacks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 119(1), pages 31-63, November.
    11. Jorge Ponce & Magdalena Tubio, 2010. "Estabilidad financiera: conceptos básicos," Documentos de trabajo 2010004, Banco Central del Uruguay.
    12. Koen Schoors & Konstantin Sonin, 2005. "Passive Creditors," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(1), pages 57-86, March.
    13. repec:zbw:bofitp:2005_010 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Boyd, John H. & Chang, Chun & Smith, Bruce D., 2002. "Deposit insurance: a reconsideration," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1235-1260, September.
    15. John H. Boyd & Chun Chang & Bruce Smith, 1998. "Moral hazard under commercial and universal banking," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Aug, pages 426-471.
    16. Michael P. Dooley & Inseok Shin, 1999. "Private inflows when crises are anticipated: a case study of Korea," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Sep.
    17. Hali Edison & Pongsak Luangaram & Marcus Miller, 1998. "Asset Bubbles, Domino Effects and 'Lifeboats': Elements of the East Asian Crisis," CSGR Working papers series 05/98, Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation (CSGR), University of Warwick.
    18. Gorton, Gary & Winton, Andrew, 2003. "Financial intermediation," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 8, pages 431-552, Elsevier.
    19. Pedro Marcelo Oviedo, 2004. "Macroeconomic risk and banking crises in emerging market countries: business fluctuations with financial crashes," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Jun.
    20. Peydró, José-Luis & Polo, Andrea & Sette, Enrico, 2020. "Risk Mitigating versus Risk Shifting: Evidence from Banks Security Trading in Crises," CEPR Discussion Papers 15473, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. Hyytinen, Ari & Takalo, Tuomas, 2001. "Preventing Systemic Crises through Bank Transparency," Discussion Papers 776, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial intermediation - macroeconomics risks - state-contingent contracts - banking regulation;

    JEL classification:

    • D41 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Perfect Competition
    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates
    • G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15884. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.