IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/coecpo/v5y1987i1p92-99.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Defective Design Of Federal Deposit Insurance

Author

Listed:
  • KENNETH E. SCOTT

Abstract

Deposit insurance funds, especially the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, are currently in visible trouble. Two central defects of the existing deposit insurance system are identified: (1) mispricing of the insurance premiums and (2) incentives for both the industry and the insurance agencies to postpone recognizing and realizing losses. Insurance premiums are mispriced because they are assessed at the same rate for all institutions, which creates a bias for banks to take greater risks. Practical difficulties of setting an appropriate risk‐based premium for each bank are real but not necessarily insurmountable. In particular, the sale by the bank of unsecured and uninsured debt could provide a market measure of default risk, under a given failure rule. The choice of a failure rule is also a critical matter. Current failure rules are poorly defined and permit insolvent institutions to continue in operation. Specifying a market value test of insolvency in the statutes would be helpful, but it would have to be supported by market‐value accounting requirements and stronger pressures on banking authorities not to defer action.

Suggested Citation

  • Kenneth E. Scott, 1987. "The Defective Design Of Federal Deposit Insurance," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 5(1), pages 92-99, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:5:y:1987:i:1:p:92-99
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1465-7287.1987.tb00249.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7287.1987.tb00249.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1465-7287.1987.tb00249.x?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James R. Barth & R. Dan Brumbaugh, Jr. & Daniel Sauerhaft & George H. K. Wang, 1985. "Insolvency And Risk‐Taking In The Thrift Industry: Implications For The Future," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 3(5), pages 1-32, September.
    2. Edward J. Kane, 1985. "The Gathering Crisis in Federal Deposit Insurance," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262611856, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Gerald P. O'Driscoll, 1988. "Bank Failures: The Deposit Insurance Connection," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 6(2), pages 1-12, April.
    2. RICHARD W. Nelson, 1993. "Regulatory Structure, Regulatory Failure, And The S& L Debacle," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 11(1), pages 108-115, January.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    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. Laeven, Luc & Levine, Ross, 2009. "Bank governance, regulation and risk taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 259-275, August.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Martin Hellwig, 2000. "Banken zwischen Politik und Markt: Worin besteht die volkswirtschaftliche Verantwortung der Banken?," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 1(3), pages 337-356, August.
    16. Randall W. Bennett & Christine Loucks, 1996. "Politics And Length Of Time To Bank Failure: 1986–1990," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 14(4), pages 29-41, October.
    17. Larry Wall & Robert Eisenbeis, 1999. "Financial Regulatory Structure and the Resolution of Conflicting Goals," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 16(2), pages 223-245, December.
    18. Ross Levine & Norman Loayza & Thorsten Beck, 2002. "Financial Intermediation and Growth: Causality and Causes," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Leonardo Hernández & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Se (ed.),Banking, Financial Integration, and International Crises, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 2, pages 031-084, Central Bank of Chile.
    19. William Gissy, 2000. "Regulatory forbearance: A reconsideration," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 6(4), pages 722-729, November.
    20. Nagarajan, S. & Sealey, C. W., 1995. "Forbearance, deposit insurance pricing, and incentive compatible bank regulation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 1109-1130, September.
    21. John H. Boyd & Mark Gertler, 1993. "US Commercial Banking: Trends, Cycles, and Policy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1993, Volume 8, pages 319-377, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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:coecpo:v:5:y:1987:i:1:p:92-99. 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/weaaaea.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.