IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/17299.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inefficient Provision of Liquidity

Author

Listed:
  • Oliver D. Hart
  • Luigi Zingales

Abstract

We study an economy where the lack of a simultaneous double coincidence of wants creates the need for a relatively safe asset (money). We show that, even in the absence of asymmetric information or an agency problem, the private provision of liquidity is inefficient. The reason is that liquidity affects prices and the welfare of others, and creators do not internalize this. This distortion is present even if we introduce lending and government money. To eliminate the inefficiency the government must restrict the creation of liquidity by the private sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Oliver D. Hart & Luigi Zingales, 2011. "Inefficient Provision of Liquidity," NBER Working Papers 17299, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17299
    Note: CF
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17299.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bengt Holmstrom & Jean Tirole, 1997. "Financial Intermediation, Loanable Funds, and The Real Sector," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(3), pages 663-691.
    2. Bengt Holmstrom & Jean Tirole, 1998. "Private and Public Supply of Liquidity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(1), pages 1-40, February.
    3. Patrick Kehoe & V.V. Chari, 2010. "Bailouts, Time Inconsistency, and Optimal Regulation," 2010 Meeting Papers 527, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Douglas W. Diamond & Philip H. Dybvig, 2000. "Bank runs, deposit insurance, and liquidity," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 24(Win), pages 14-23.
    5. Emmanuel Farhi & Jean Tirole, 2012. "Collective Moral Hazard, Maturity Mismatch, and Systemic Bailouts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 60-93, February.
    6. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1989. "On Money as a Medium of Exchange," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 927-954, August.
    7. Randall Wright & Cyril Monnet & Fabrizio Mattesini, 2009. "Banking: a mechanism design approach," 2009 Meeting Papers 635, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Douglas W. Diamond, 1984. "Financial Intermediation and Delegated Monitoring," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(3), pages 393-414.
    9. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & John Moore, 2002. "Evil Is the Root of All Money," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 62-66, May.
    10. Gennaioli, Nicola & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 2012. "Neglected risks, financial innovation, and financial fragility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 452-468.
    11. Mathias Dewatripont & Jean Tirole, 1994. "The prudential regulation of banks," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/9539, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    12. Barth, James R. & Caprio, Gerard Jr. & Levine, Ross, 2004. "Bank regulation and supervision: what works best?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 205-248, April.
    13. Ostroy, Joseph M. & Starr, Ross M., 1990. "The transactions role of money," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: B. M. Friedman & F. H. Hahn (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 3-62, Elsevier.
    14. Gorton, Gary & Pennacchi, George, 1990. "Financial Intermediaries and Liquidity Creation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(1), pages 49-71, March.
    15. Oliver Hart & John Moore, 1994. "A Theory of Debt Based on the Inalienability of Human Capital," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 841-879.
    16. Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, 2010. "Financial Innovation and Financial Fragility," Working Papers 2010.114, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    17. Douglas W. Diamond & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2001. "Liquidity Risk, Liquidity Creation, and Financial Fragility: A Theory of Banking," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(2), pages 287-327, April.
    18. Holmström, Bengt, 2013. "Inside and Outside Liquidity," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262518536, April.
    19. Jeremy C. Stein, 2011. "Monetary Policy as Financial-Stability Regulation," NBER Working Papers 16883, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:4:p:1245-1284 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Zhiguo He & Péter Kondor, 2016. "Inefficient Investment Waves," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 735-780, March.
    2. Chari, V.V. & Phelan, Christopher, 2014. "On the social usefulness of fractional reserve banking," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 1-13.
    3. Oliver Hart & Luigi Zingales, 2015. "Liquidity And Inefficient Investment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(5), pages 737-769, October.
    4. Jonathan Zinman, 2014. "Consumer Credit: Too Much or Too Little (or Just Right)?," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(S2), pages 209-237.
    5. Maya Eden & Benjamin S. Kay, 2019. "Safe Assets as Commodity Money," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(6), pages 1651-1689, September.
    6. Weerachart T. Kilenthong & Robert M. Townsend, 2021. "A Market-Based Solution for Fire Sales and Other Pecuniary Externalities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(4), pages 981-1010.
    7. Park, Jaevin & Kwon, Ohik, 2023. "Stablecoins: Legal restrictions theory and monetary policy," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    8. Weerachart T. Kilenthong & Robert M. Townsend, 2021. "A Market-Based Solution for Fire Sales and Other Pecuniary Externalities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(4), pages 981-1010.
    9. Jyh-Horng Lin & Shi Chen & Fu-Wei Huang, 2018. "Bank Interest Margin, Multiple Shadow Banking Activities, and Capital Regulation," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-20, July.

    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. Hanson, Samuel G. & Shleifer, Andrei & Stein, Jeremy C. & Vishny, Robert W., 2015. "Banks as patient fixed-income investors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 449-469.
    2. Emmanuel Farhi & Jean Tirole, 2012. "Collective Moral Hazard, Maturity Mismatch, and Systemic Bailouts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 60-93, February.
    3. Donaldson, Jason Roderick & Piacentino, Giorgia & Thakor, Anjan, 2018. "Warehouse banking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(2), pages 250-267.
    4. Douglas W. Diamond & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2005. "Liquidity Shortages and Banking Crises," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(2), pages 615-647, April.
    5. Emmanuel Farhi & Jean Tirole, 2018. "Deadly Embrace: Sovereign and Financial Balance Sheets Doom Loops," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(3), pages 1781-1823.
    6. Xavier Vives, 2011. "Competition and Stability in Banking," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Luis Felipe Céspedes & Roberto Chang & Diego Saravia (ed.),Monetary Policy under Financial Turbulence, edition 1, volume 16, chapter 12, pages 455-502, Central Bank of Chile.
    7. Juliane Begenau, 2015. "Capital Requirements, Risk Choice, and Liquidity Provision in a Business Cycle Model," 2015 Meeting Papers 687, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Brunnermeier, Markus K. & Oehmke, Martin, 2013. "Bubbles, Financial Crises, and Systemic Risk," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1221-1288, Elsevier.
    9. DeAngelo, Harry & Stulz, René M., 2015. "Liquid-claim production, risk management, and bank capital structure: Why high leverage is optimal for banks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 219-236.
    10. Toni Ahnert & Enrico Perotti, 2018. "Seeking Safety," Staff Working Papers 18-41, Bank of Canada.
    11. Hajime Tomura, 2010. "Liquidity Transformation and Bank Capital Requirements," Staff Working Papers 10-22, Bank of Canada.
    12. Dietrich, Diemo & Gehrig, Thomas, 2021. "Speculative and precautionary demand for liquidity in competitive banking markets," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118869, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Jean Tirole, 2011. "Illiquidity and All Its Friends," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 287-325, June.
    14. Begenau, Juliane, 2020. "Capital requirements, risk choice, and liquidity provision in a business-cycle model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(2), pages 355-378.
    15. Anatoli Segura & Javier Suarez, 2017. "How Excessive Is Banks’ Maturity Transformation?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(10), pages 3538-3580.
    16. Goldstein, Itay & Razin, Assaf, 2015. "Three Branches of Theories of Financial Crises," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 10(2), pages 113-180, 30.
    17. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Thomas M. Eisenbach & Yuliy Sannikov, 2012. "Macroeconomics with Financial Frictions: A Survey," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000384, David K. Levine.
    18. Emmanuel Farhi & Jean Tirole, 2021. "Shadow Banking and the Four Pillars of Traditional Financial Intermediation [Securitization without Risk Transfer]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(6), pages 2622-2653.
    19. Bouwman, Christa H. S., 2013. "Liquidity: How Banks Create It and How It Should Be Regulated," Working Papers 13-32, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    20. Douglas W. Diamond & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2001. "Liquidity Risk, Liquidity Creation, and Financial Fragility: A Theory of Banking," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(2), pages 287-327, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E41 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Demand for Money
    • E51 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Money Supply; Credit; Money Multipliers
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:17299. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.