We quantify the gains from regulating maturity transformation in a model of banks that finance long-term assets with nontradable debt. Banks choose the amount and maturity of their debt by trading off investors’ preferences for short maturities with the risk of systemic crises. Pecuniary externalities make unregulated debt maturities inefficiently short. In calibrating the model to eurozone banking data for 2006, we find that lengthening the average maturity of wholesale debt from 2.8 to 3.3 months would produce welfare gains with a present value of euro 105 billion, while the lengthening induced by the NSFR would be too drastic. Received November 27, 2014; editorial decision November 14, 2016 by Editor Itay Goldstein.

We quantify the gains from regulating maturity transformation in a model of banks that finance long-term assets with nontradable debt. Banks choose the amount and maturity of their debt by trading off investors’preferences for short maturities with the risk of systemic crises. Pecuniary externalities make unregulated debt maturities inefficiently short. In calibrating the model to eurozone banking data for 2006, we find that lengthening the average maturity of wholesale debt from 2.8 to 3.3 months would produce welfare gains with a present value of euro 105 billion, while the lengthening induced by the NSFR would be too drastic.

[We compare various bank capital regulation regimes using a dynamic equilibrium model of relationship lending in which banks are unable to access the equity markets every period and the business cycle determines loans' probabilities of default. Banks hold endogenous capital buffers as a precaution against shocks that impair their future lending capacity. We find that Basel II is more procyclical than Basel I but makes banks safer, and it is generally superior in welfare terms. For high social costs of bank failure, the optimal capital requirements are higher but less cyclically varying, like those currently targeted by Basel III.]

We assess the procyclical effects of bank capital regulation in a dynamic equilibrium model of relationship lending in which banks are unable to access the equity markets every period. Banks anticipate that shocks to their earnings as well as the cyclical position of the economy can impair their capacity to lend in the future and, as a precaution, hold capital buffers. We find that under cyclically-varying risk-based capital requirements (e.g. Basel II) banks hold larger buffers in expansions than in recessions. Yet, these buffers are insufficient to prevent a significant contraction in the supply of credit at the arrival of a recession. We show that cyclical adjustments in the confidence level underlying Basel II can reduce its procyclical effects on the supply of credit without compromising banks’ long-run solvency targets.

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This article considers why a manager would choose to submit himself to the discipline of bank monitoring. This issue is analyzed within the context of a model where the manager enjoys private benefits, which can be restricted by the monitor, and is optimally compensated by shareholders. Within this setting we find that managers will submit to monitoring when they receive favorable private information. This result is consistent with event study evidence that suggests that the market has a favorable view of financing choices that increase monitoring.

[By identifying the possibility of imposing a credible threat of liquidation as the key role of informed (bank) finance in a moral hazard context, we characterize the circumstances under which a mixture of informed and uninformed (market) finance is optimal, and explain why bank debt is typically secured, senior, and tightly held. We also show that the effectiveness of mixed finance may be impaired by the possibility of collusion between the firms and their informed lenders, and that in the optimal renegotiation-proof contract informed debt capacity will be exhausted before appealing to supplementary uninformed finance.]

By identifying the possibility of imposing a creditable threat of liquidation as the key role of informed (bank) finance in a moral hazard context, we characterize the circumstances under which a mixture of informed and uninformed (market) finance is optimal, and explain why bank debt is typically secured, senior, and tightly held. We also show that the effectiveness of mixed finance may be impaired by the possibility of collusion between the firms and their informed lenders, and that in the optimal renegotiation-proof contract informed debt capacity will be exhausted before appealing to supplementary uninformed finance.