imprint:
Cambridge, Mass: National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2013
Published in:NBER working paper series ; no. w19278
Extent:
1 Online-Ressource
Language:
English
DOI:
10.3386/w19278
Identifier:
Reproduction note:
Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers
Origination:
Footnote:
System requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files
Mode of access: World Wide Web
Description:
This paper studies the interaction of government debt and financial markets. Both markets are fragile: excessively responsive to fundamentals and prone to strategic uncertainty. This interaction, termed a 'diabolic loop', is driven by government choice to bail out banks and the resulting incentives for banks to hold government debt rather than to self-insure through equity buffers. We provide conditions such that the 'diabolic loop' is a Nash Equilibrium of the interaction between banks and the government. Instability originates in debt markets and is channeled to financial arrangements, and then back again
The analysis highlights the critical role of bank equity for the existence of a diabolic loop. When equity is issued, no diabolic loop exists. In equilibrium, banks' rational expectations of a bailout ensure that no equity is issued and the sovereign-bank loop operates