Conglomeration and consolidation in the financial system broaden the activities financial institutions are undertaking and cause them to become more homogenous.Although resulting diversification gains make each institution appear less risky, we argue that financial stability may not improve as total risk in the financial system remains the same. Stability may even fall as institution' incentives for providing liquidity and limiting their risk taking worsen. Optimal regulation may thus not provide a relief for diversification. However, we also identify important benefits of a broadening of activities. By reducing the differences among institutions, it lowers the need for inter-institutional risk sharing. This mitigates the impact of any imperfections such risk sharing may be subject to. The reduced importance of such risk sharing, moreover, lowers externalities across institutions. As a result, institutions' incentives are improved and there is less need for regulating them.
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Paper provided by Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research in its series Discussion Paper with number
72.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Franklin Allen & Douglas Gale, 1998.
"Optimal Financial Crises,"
Journal of Finance,
American Finance Association, vol. 53(4), pages 1245-1284, 08.
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Xavier Freixas & Gyongyi Loranth & Alan D. Morrison & Hyun Song Shin, 2004.
"Regulating Financial Conglomerates,"
Research series
200405-10, National Bank of Belgium.
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