Bailouts, the Incentive to Manage Risk, and Financial Crises

54 Pages Posted: 8 Jun 2009 Last revised: 23 Feb 2023

See all articles by Stavros Panageas

Stavros Panageas

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Finance Area; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Date Written: June 2009

Abstract

A firm's termination leads to bankruptcy costs. This may create an incentive for outside stakeholders or the firm's debtholders to bail out the firm as bankruptcy looms. Because of this implicit guarantee, firm shareholders have an incentive to increase volatility in order to exploit the implicit protection. However, if they increase volatility too much they may induce the guarantee-extending parties to "walk away". I derive the optimal risk management rule in such a framework and show that it allows high volatility choices, while net worth is high. However, risk limits tighten abruptly when the firm's net worth declines below an endogenously determined threshold. Hence, the model reproduces the qualitative features of existing risk management rules, and can account for phenomena such as "flight to quality".

Suggested Citation

Panageas, Stavros, Bailouts, the Incentive to Manage Risk, and Financial Crises (June 2009). NBER Working Paper No. w15058, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1415220

Stavros Panageas (Contact Author)

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Finance Area ( email )

Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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