IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedreq/y2011i2qp133-152nv.97no.2.html

Financial firm resolution policy as a time-consistency problem

Author

Listed:
  • Borys Grochulski

Abstract

In this article, we describe a time-consistency problem that can arise in the government's policy toward insolvent financial firms. We present this problem using a simple model in which shareholders of a large financial firm can raise low-cost debt financing and take on an excessive amount of risk. If this risk backfires, there are spillover effects harmful to the economy as a whole. In such a crisis event, the government's best action is to bail the firm out. The prospect of this bailout is the very reason why the firm can raise debt at low cost while taking on excessive risk. Given the structure of this problem, we discuss government policy that can eliminate or mitigate excessive risk-taking. Efficient resolution policy can eliminate excessive risk-taking only if it can completely eliminate the negative spillover effect. Alternatively, excessive risk-taking can be eliminated either directly by accurate government supervision of system-wide risk-taking, or indirectly by imposing binding capital requirements.

Suggested Citation

  • Borys Grochulski, 2011. "Financial firm resolution policy as a time-consistency problem," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 97(2Q), pages 133-152.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedreq:y:2011:i:2q:p:133-152:n:v.97no.2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_quarterly/2011/q2/grochulski.cfm
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.richmondfed.org/-/media/RichmondFedOrg/publications/research/economic_quarterly/2011/q2/pdf/grochulski.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Douglas Clement & Christopher Phelan, 2009. "Incentive compensation in the banking industry: insights from economic theory," Economic Policy Paper 09-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    2. Barro, Robert J. & Gordon, David B., 1983. "Rules, discretion and reputation in a model of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 101-121.
    3. Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2004. "Monetary Discretion, Pricing Complementarity, and Dynamic Multiple Equilibria," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(4), pages 1513-1553.
    4. Marshall, David A. & Prescott, Edward Simpson, 2006. "State-contingent bank regulation with unobserved actions and unobserved characteristics," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(11), pages 2015-2049, November.
    5. Marshall, David A. & Prescott, Edward Simpson, 2001. "Bank capital regulation with and without state-contingent penalties," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 139-184, June.
    6. Lucas, Robert Jr. & Stokey, Nancy L., 1983. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy in an economy without capital," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 55-93.
    7. Cochrane, John H, 1995. "Time-Consistent Health Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 445-473, June.
    8. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    9. Arantxa Jarque & Edward Simpson Prescott, 2010. "Optimal bonuses and deferred pay for bank employees : implications of hidden actions with persistent effects in time," Working Paper 10-16, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kartik B. Athreya & Arantxa Jarque, 2015. "Understanding Living Wills," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue 3Q, pages 193-223.
    2. Arantxa Jarque & David A. Price, 2015. "Living Wills: A Tool for Curbing Too Big to Fail," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue 1Q, pages 77-94.

    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. Richard Dennis & Tatiana Kirsanova, 2010. "Expectations traps and coordination failures: selecting among multiple discretionary equilibria," Working Paper Series 2010-02, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    2. Samadi, Ali Hussein & Montakhab, Afshin & Marzban, Hussein & Owjimehr, Sakine, 2018. "Quantum Barro–Gordon game in monetary economics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 489(C), pages 94-101.
    3. Buchholz, Wolfgang & Wiegard, Wolfgang, 1997. "Zeit(in)konsistente Steuerpolitik," Tübinger Diskussionsbeiträge 115, University of Tübingen, School of Business and Economics.
    4. Ali Hussein Samadi & Afshin Montakhab & Hussein Marzban & Sakine Owjimehr, 2017. "Quantum Barro--Gordon Game in Monetary Economics," Papers 1708.05689, arXiv.org.
    5. Hao Li & Gaowang Wang & Jun Yu, 2025. "Revisiting Optimal Capital Taxation with the Spirit of Capitalism," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 26(2), pages 501-524, November.
    6. Westerhout, Ed, 2021. "Inflation-Linked Bonds, Nominal Bonds, and Countercyclical Monetary Policies," Discussion Paper 2021-001, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    7. R. Cellini & L. Lambertini & G. Leitmann, 2004. "Perfect Uncontrollable Differential Games," Working Papers 509, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    8. Stefania Albanesi, "undated". "The Time Consistency of Optimal Monetary Policy with Heterogeneous Agents," Working Papers 207, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    9. Michael D. Bordo & Anna J. Schwartz, 1994. "The Specie Standard as a Contingent Rule: Some Evidence for Core and Peripheral Countries, 1880-1990," NBER Working Papers 4860, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Guido Tabellini, 2005. "Finn Kydland and Edward Prescott's Contribution to the Theory of Macroeconomic Policy," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 107(2), pages 203-216, June.
    11. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2006. "Modern Macroeconomics in Practice: How Theory Is Shaping Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 3-28, Fall.
    12. Michael D. Bordo, 1993. "The gold standard, Bretton Woods and other monetary regimes: a historical appraisal," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Mar, pages 123-191.
    13. Roberto Cellini & Luca Lambertini, 2010. "The Issue Of Time Inconsistency Revisited As An Extended Game," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 12(02), pages 161-174.
    14. Jang, Youngsoo, 2023. "On the Time Consistency of Universal Basic Income," MPRA Paper 117674, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. V. V. Chari, 1988. "Time consistency and optimal policy design," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Fall, pages 17-31.
    16. Hoelle, Matthew, 2015. "On the Pareto efficiency of term structure targeting policies," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 62-69.
    17. Roque B. Fernández, 1991. "What Have Populists Learned from Hyperinflation?," NBER Chapters, in: The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin America, pages 121-149, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. R. Cellini & L. Lambertini, 2003. "On the Dynamic Consistency of Optimal Monetary Policy," Working Papers 463, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    19. Thomas Krichel & Paul Levine & Joseph Pearlman, 1996. "Fiscal and monetary policy in a monetary union: Credible inflation targets or monetized debt?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 132(1), pages 28-54, March.
    20. Adam, Klaus & Billi, Roberto M., 2008. "Monetary conservatism and fiscal policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(8), pages 1376-1388, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    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:fip:fedreq:y:2011:i:2q:p:133-152:n:v.97no.2. 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: Christian Pascasio (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbrius.html .

    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.