Abstract
If penalizing a borrower in default is costly to lenders, Pareto-improving loans may be dynamically inconsistent not because there is no sufficiently harsh penalty for default, but because the lender has no incentive to implement the penalty if default occurs. Infinitely-lived institutions repeatedly intermediating between lenders and borrowers, called banks, can enforce contracts that individual lenders cannot, but to do so they must earn strictly positive profits. Maintaining the value of bank equity can also provide an incentive for bank owners not to use deposits fraudulently.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 281-293 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | Journal of Banking and Finance |
Volume | 10 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 1986 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Finance
- Economics and Econometrics