IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/reesec/v24y1996i2p195-218.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Role of Principal‐Agent Conflicts in the 1980s Thrift Crisis

Author

Listed:
  • Rebel A. Cole
  • Robert A. Eisenbeis

Abstract

Agency theory suggests that many of the costs incurred by the taxpayer during the 1980s thrift crisis were the result of conflicts between principals and their agents. This study models the costs associated with three distinct types of agency conflicts involved in closing an insolvent thrift—conflicts between creditors and owners, between owners and managers, and between taxpayers and government officials. Using a model that controls for sample‐selection bias, the study presents strong evidence that thrift owners effected wealth transfers from creditors by undertaking high‐risk investments, and that government officials pursued policies that increased losses to the thrift deposit insurance fund which ultimately were funded by the taxpayer. The results do not show that managers effected wealth transfers from owners through expense‐preference behavior, but rather that inefficient management increased the losses of the deposit insurance fund.

Suggested Citation

  • Rebel A. Cole & Robert A. Eisenbeis, 1996. "The Role of Principal‐Agent Conflicts in the 1980s Thrift Crisis," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 24(2), pages 195-218.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:reesec:v:24:y:1996:i:2:p:195-218
    DOI: 10.1111/1540-6229.00687
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-6229.00687
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1540-6229.00687?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward J. Kane, 1985. "The Gathering Crisis in Federal Deposit Insurance," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262611856, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lim, Terence & Lo, Andrew W. & Merton, Robert C. & Scholes, Myron S., 2006. "The Derivatives Sourcebook," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 1(5–6), pages 365-572, April.
    2. Cole, Rebel A. & White, Lawrence J., 2017. "When time is not on our side: The costs of regulatory forbearance in the closure of insolvent banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 235-249.
    3. Cole, Rebel A. & Fenn, George W., 1996. "The role of commercial real estate investments in the banking crisis of 1985-92," MPRA Paper 24692, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Nov 2008.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vittas, Dimitri & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Musalem, Alberto, 1993. "North American free trade agreement : issues on trade in financial services for Mexico," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1153, The World Bank.
    2. Elijah Brewer III & Thomas H. Mondschean & Philip Strahan, 1996. "The Role of Monitoring in Reducing the Moral Hazard Problem Associated with Government Guarantees: Evidence from the Life Insurance Industry," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 96-15, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    3. Honohan, Patrick*Vittas, Dimitri, 1996. "Bank regulation and the network paradigm : policy implications for developing and transition economies," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1631, The World Bank.
    4. Hausmann, Ricardo, 1991. "Regulación y supervisión de la solvencia de la banca en Venezuela," Sede de la CEPAL en Santiago (Estudios e Investigaciones) 33729, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    5. repec:vuw:vuwscr:18973 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Gropp, Reint E. & Köhler, Matthias, 2010. "Bank owners or bank managers: who is keen on risk? Evidence from the financial crisis," ZEW Discussion Papers 10-013, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    7. Jan Bartholdy & Glenn Boyle & Roger Stover, 2004. "Deposit insurance and the stock market: evidence from Denmark," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(6), pages 567-578.
    8. Swamy, Vighneswara, 2014. "Bank regulation, supervision and efficiency during the global financial crisis," MPRA Paper 58295, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Kane, Edward J., 1995. "Difficulties of transferring risk-based capital requirements to developing countries," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 3(2-3), pages 193-216, July.
    10. Laeven, Luc & Levine, Ross, 2009. "Bank governance, regulation and risk taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 259-275, August.
    11. Adolfo Barajas & Ralph Chami & Thomas Cosimano, 2004. "Did the Basel Accord Cause a Credit Slowdown in Latin America?," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2004), pages 135-182, August.
    12. Thomas F. Cargill & Thomas Mayer, 1992. "U.S. Deposit Insurance Reform," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 10(3), pages 95-103, July.
    13. Gillian Garcia & Henriëtte Prast, 2004. "Depositor and investor protection in the Netherlands: past, present and future," DNB Occasional Studies 202, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    14. John B. Shoven & Scott B. Smart & Joel Waldfogel, 1992. "Real Interest Rates and the Savings and Loan Crisis: The Moral Hazard Premium," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 155-167, Winter.
    15. Stolz, Stéphanie, 2002. "The Relationship between Bank Capital, Risk-Taking, and Capital Regulation: A Review of the Literature," Kiel Working Papers 1105, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    16. Tyler Cowen & Randall Kroszner, 1990. "Mutual Fund Banking: A Market Approach," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 10(1), pages 223-237, Spring/Su.
    17. Kane, Edward J & Unal, Haluk, 1990. "Modeling Structural and Temporal Variation in the Market's Valuation of Banking Firms," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(1), pages 113-136, March.
    18. David G. Tarr, 2010. "The political, regulatory, and market failures that caused the US financial crisis," Journal of Financial Economic Policy, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 2(2), pages 163-186, June.
    19. Joe Peek & Eric S. Rosengren, 1994. "Bank Real Estate Lending and the New England Capital Crunch," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 22(1), pages 33-58, March.
    20. Jones, Jeffrey S. & Miller, Scott A. & Yeager, Timothy J., 2011. "Charter value, Tobin's Q and bank risk during the subprime financial crisis," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 63(5), pages 372-391, September.
    21. Sangkyun Park, 2024. "Mutual insurance for catastrophe hazards: Case of deposit insurance," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 53(1), February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:reesec:v:24:y:1996:i:2:p:195-218. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/areueea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.