This paper examines whether banks strategically incorporate their competitors’ liquidity mismatch policies when determining their own and the impact of these collective decisions on financial stability. Using a novel identification strategy exploiting the presence of partially overlapping peer groups, I show that banks’ liquidity transformation activity is driven by that of their peers. These correlated decisions are concentrated on the asset side of riskier banks and are asymmetric, with mimicking occurring only when competitors take more risk. Accordingly, this strategic behavior increases banks’ default risk and overall systemic risk, highlighting the importance of regulating liquidity risk from a macroprudential perspective. ReceivedMay 4, 2016; editorial decision January 1, 2019 by Editor Philip Strahan.

To safeguard its technological leadership, the U.S. has restricted domestic suppliers from exporting cutting-edge technologies to selected Chinese firms. Domestic firms affected by these export controls halt sales to Chinese customers, as intended, but struggle to establish new relations with alternative customers domestically or in politically aligned regions. Consequently, domestic suppliers experience sizable losses in market capitalization, along with reductions in profitability, employment, and bank lending. Chinese firms are more proactive in reconfiguring supply chains, though not without costs. Overall, export controls impose larger costs on U.S. firms developing the very technologies these policies aim to protect.

A large-scale microcredit expansion program—together with a credit bureau accessible to all lenders—can enable unbanked borrowers to build a credit history, facilitating their transition to commercial banks. Loan-level data from Rwanda show the program improved access to credit and reduced poverty. A sizable share of first-time borrowers switched to commercial banks, which cream-skim less risky borrowers and grant them larger, cheaper, and longer-maturity loans. Switchers have lower default risk than nonswitchers and are not riskier than other bank borrowers. Switchers also obtain better loan terms from banks compared with first-time bank borrowers without a credit history.