We study financial intermediation in which sufficient sorting is impossible. We identify a new type of market failure that may occur even when returns of investing entrepreneurs are verifiable. Moreover, we suggest that the nature of competition determines the contracts banks offer. A monopoly bank will offer equity contracts. In any pure strategy equilibrium when lenders compete à la Bertrand,...

Consider a two-period situation. In the first period a consumer and a firm bargain over the price of a bond. The objective is a project which takes one period to come on stream. Both agents prefer production but the consumer is less patient than the firm. The outcome is underproduction. A condition for the intervention of a bank exists. It is shown that intermediation is unstable. The potential...

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether foreign bank presence has had a stabilizing or destabilizing effect on the Latin American banking sector. Our results suggest that, while "brick and mortar" operations of foreign banks in Latin American countries contribute to the reduction of the probability of a banking crisis, there is no significant effect of direct foreign lending initiated...

The authors construct three financial conditions indexes (FCIs) for Canada based on three approaches: an IS-curve-based model, generalized impulse-response functions, and factor analysis. Each approach is intended to address one or more criticisms of the monetary conditions index (MCI) and existing FCIs. To evaluate their three FCIs, the authors consider five performance criteria: the consisten...

In the present paper we propose a method to infer on the different clusters potentially present in a panel data set that is data driven in the sense that the classification of each subject into a specific group is estimated along with the model parameters. The general model allows additionally for time-varying parameters, whereby the timing of the structural changes is also part of the model es...

JEL Classification Code(s): J 31, J 71) "Perceptions of Discrimination, Effort to Obtain Psychological Balance, and Relative Wages: Can We Infer a Happiness Gradient?" There is a substantial literature that finds a linkage between happiness and relative economic well being as measured by earnings or wages. There is also a well documented racial gap in wages. One explanation for this is disparat...

The magnitude and frequency of recent financial crises underscore the importance of understanding financial instability for the purpose of crisis prevention and crisis management. This paper brings together and adds structure to the theoretical literature on financial instability and the implications they carry for policy-makers. In addition to clarifying the theoretical underpinnings for study...

Although dealership government and equity securities have, on the surface, similar market structures, the author demonstrates that some subtle differences exist between them that are likely to significantly affect the way market-makers trade, and as such have an impact on the liquidity that they provide. The author reviews some of the concepts recently introduced in the literature, examining mu...

In order to protect the public's confidence in deposit money, governments usually guarantee bank deposits implicitly or through an explicit deposit insurance system. Thus bank insolvency does not induce immediate bank runs. In many episodes of banking crises, several years passed quietly after bank insolvency had occurred, with the insolvency continuing to develop under the surface, and the ras...

This paper empirically determines why, during the 1990s, inflation in Canada was consistently more stable than predicted by the fixed-coefficients Phillips curve. A time-varying-coefficient model, where all the parameters adjust simultaneously, shows that the behaviour of expectations was probably a major contributing factor. A decrease in the value of the coefficient on the first difference of...