Publications
Publications
- December 2013
- Journal of Financial Economics
Reputational Contagion and Optimal Regulatory Forbearance
By: Alan Morrison and Lucy White
Abstract
Existing studies suggest that systemic crises may arise because banks either hold correlated assets or are connected by interbank lending. This paper shows that common regulation is also a conduit for interbank contagion. One bank's failure may undermine confidence in the banking regulator's competence, and, hence, in other banks chartered by the same regulator. As a result, depositors withdraw funds from otherwise unconnected banks. The optimal regulatory response to this behavior can be privately to exhibit forbearance to a failing bank. We show that regulatory transparency improves confidence ex ante but impedes regulators' ability to stem panics ex post.
Keywords
Citation
Morrison, Alan, and Lucy White. "Reputational Contagion and Optimal Regulatory Forbearance." Journal of Financial Economics 110, no. 3 (December 2013): 642–658.