This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data


[ Papers | Articles | Software | Books | Chapters | Authors | Institutions | JEL Classification | NEP reports | Search | New papers by email | Author registration | Rankings | Volunteers | FAQ | Blog | Help! ]

Collective Risk Management in a Flight to Quality Episode

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
Ricardo J. Caballero
Arvind Krishnamurthy

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Abstract

We present a model of optimal intervention in a flight to quality episode. The reason for intervention stems from a collective bias in agents' expectations. Agents in the model make risk management decisions with incomplete knowledge. They understand their own shocks, but are uncertain of how correlated their shocks are with systemwide shocks, treating the latter uncertainty as Knightian. We show that when aggregate liquidity is low, an increase in uncertainty leads agents to a series of protective actions -- decreasing risk exposures, hoarding liquidity, locking-up capital -- that reflect a flight to quality. However, the conservative actions of agents leave the aggregate economy over-exposed to negative shocks. Each agent covers himself against his own worst-case scenario, but the scenario that the collective of agents are guarding against is impossible. A lender of last resort, even if less knowledgeable than private agents about individual shocks, does not suffer from this collective bias and finds that pledging intervention in extreme events is valuable. The intervention unlocks private capital markets.

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12896.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function:
Download Restriction: Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html.

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 12896.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length:
Date of creation: Feb 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12896

Note: CF EFG IFM ME
Contact details of provider:
Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Phone: 617-868-3900
Email:
Web page: http://www.nber.org
More information through EDIRC

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().

Related research
Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Mortgages
G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies
G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Larry G. Epstein & Martin Schneider, 2001. "Recursive Multiple-Priors," RCER Working Papers 485, University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Myron S. Scholes, 2000. "Crisis and Risk Management," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 17-21, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Evan Gatev & Philip E. Strahan, 2006. "Banks' Advantage in Hedging Liquidity Risk: Theory and Evidence from the Commercial Paper Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(2), pages 867-892, 04. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Larry G. Epstein, 2001. "Sharing Ambiguity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 45-50, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Charles W. Calomiris, 1994. "Is the discount window necessary? a Penn Central perspective," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue May, pages 31-55. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Bryan Routledge & Stanley Zin, 2009. "Model Uncertainty and Liquidity," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(4), pages 543-566, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  7. Faruk Gul & Wolfgang Pesendorfer, 2005. "The Case for Mindless Economics," Levine's Working Paper Archive 784828000000000581, David K. Levine. [Downloadable!]
  8. Dow, James & Werlang, Sergio Ribeiro da Costa, 1992. "Uncertainty Aversion, Risk Aversion, and the Optimal Choice of Portfolio," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(1), pages 197-204, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Alan Greenspan, 2004. "Risk and Uncertainty in Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 33-40, May. [Downloadable!]
  10. B. Douglas Bernheim & Antonio Rangel, 2005. "Behavioral Public Economics: Welfare and Policy Analysis with Non-Standard Decision-Makers," NBER Working Papers 11518, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Epstein, Larry G & Wang, Tan, 1994. "Intertemporal Asset Pricing Under Knightian Uncertainty," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 283-322, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Hansen, Lars Peter & Sargent, Thomas J. & Turmuhambetova, Gauhar & Williams, Noah, 2006. "Robust control and model misspecification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 128(1), pages 45-90, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Hansen, Lars Peter & Sargent, Thomas J., 2003. "Robust control of forward-looking models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 581-604, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Diamond, Douglas W & Dybvig, Philip H, 1983. "Bank Runs, Deposit Insurance, and Liquidity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(3), pages 401-19, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  16. Robert J. Barro, 2005. "Rare Events and the Equity Premium," NBER Working Papers 11310, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Christopher A. Sims, 2001. "Pitfalls of a Minimax Approach to Model Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 51-54, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Xavier Gabaix & Arvind Krishnamurthy & Olivier Vigneron, 2007. "Limits of Arbitrage: Theory and Evidence from the Mortgage-Backed Securities Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(2), pages 557-595, 04. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  19. Woodford, Michael, 1990. "Public Debt as Private Liquidity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 382-88, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Markus K. Brunnermeier, 2008. "Deciphering the Liquidity and Credit Crunch 2007-08," NBER Working Papers 14612, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Chollete, Lorán, 2009. "The Propagation of Financial Extremes," Discussion Papers 2008/25, Department of Finance and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. [Downloadable!]
  3. Angelo Ranaldo & Paul Söderlind, 2007. "Safe Haven Currencies," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2007 2007-22, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Charlotte Christiansen & Angelo Ranaldo, 2007. "Extreme Coexceedances in New EU Member States’ Stock Markets," CREATES Research Papers 2007-34, School of Economics and Management, University of Aarhus. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Zhang, Zhipeng, 2009. "Who Pulls the Plug? Theory and Evidence on Corporate Bankruptcy Decisions," MPRA Paper 17676, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 05 Oct 2009. [Downloadable!]
  6. Acharya, Viral V. & Gale, Douglas M & Yorulmazer, Tanju, 2009. "Rollover Risk and Market Freezes," CEPR Discussion Papers 7122, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Martin Ellison & Thomas J. Sargent, 2009. "A defence of the FOMC," Economics Series Working Papers 457, University of Oxford, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  8. Zhang, Zhipeng, 2009. "Recovery Rates and Macroeconomic Conditions: The Role of Loan Covenants," MPRA Paper 17521, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  9. Chollete, Lorán, 2008. "The Propagation of Financial Extremes: An Application to Subprime Market Spillovers," Discussion Papers 2008/2, Department of Finance and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. [Downloadable!]
  10. Ricardo J. Caballero & Alp Simsek, 2009. "Complexity and Financial Panics," NBER Working Papers 14997, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Joshua Aizenman, 2009. "Financial Crisis and the Paradox of Under- and Over-Regulation," NBER Working Papers 15018, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Ricardo J. Caballero, 2006. "On the Macroeconomics of Asset Shortages," NBER Working Papers 12753, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 2009. "Unstable Banking," NBER Working Papers 14943, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Arvind Krishnamurthy, 2009. "Amplification Mechanisms in Liquidity Crises," NBER Working Papers 15040, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? You can create a compilation of all publications of a group of people, say alumni of a program, your students or memers of an association.

This page was last updated on 2009-11-21.


This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.