Self-Fulfilling Credit Market Freezes

Review of Financial Studies, Vol. 24, No. 11, pp. 3519-3555, 2011

Harvard Law and Economics Discussion Paper No. 623

50 Pages Posted: 13 Dec 2008 Last revised: 7 Dec 2011

See all articles by Lucian A. Bebchuk

Lucian A. Bebchuk

Harvard Law School; European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Itay Goldstein

University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School - Finance Department ; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: December 1, 2009

Abstract

This paper develops a model of a self-fulfilling credit market freeze and uses it to study alternative governmental responses to such a crisis. We study an economy in which operating firms are interdependent, with their success depending on the ability of other operating firms to obtain financing. In such an economy, an inefficient credit market freeze may arise in which banks abstain from lending to operating firms with good projects because of their self-fulfilling expectations that other banks will not be making such loans. Our model enables us to study the effectiveness of alternative measures for getting an economy out of an inefficient credit market freeze. In particular, we study the effectiveness of interest rate cuts, infusion of capital into banks, direct lending to operating firms by the government, and the provision of government capital or guarantees to finance or encourage privately managed lending. Our analysis provides a framework for analyzing and evaluating the standard and nonstandard instruments used by authorities during the financial crisis of 2008-2009. Our analysis also provides testable implications for how firms, banks, and economies can be expected to be affected by shocks to the banking system.

Keywords: Credit freeze, self-fulfilling crisis, run on the economy, global games, coordination failure, capital injection, government policy, lender of last resort

JEL Classification: C72, D21, E44, G01, G20

Suggested Citation

Bebchuk, Lucian A. and Goldstein, Itay, Self-Fulfilling Credit Market Freezes (December 1, 2009). Review of Financial Studies, Vol. 24, No. 11, pp. 3519-3555, 2011, Harvard Law and Economics Discussion Paper No. 623, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1315462

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Itay Goldstein

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