IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/snb/snbwpa/2009-11.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Banking and Transparency: Is More Information Always Better?

Author

Listed:
  • Dr. Nicole Allenspach

Abstract

This paper shows that transparency in banking can be harmful from a social planner's point of view. According to our model, enhancing transparency above a certain level may lead to the inefficient liquidation of a bank. The reason lies in the nature of a standard deposit contract: its payoff scheme has limited upside gains (cap) but leaves the depositor with the downside risk. Accordingly, depositors will not take into account possible future upside gains of the bank when deciding whether or not to withdraw their deposits. Our result points towards a trade-off the regulator faces: while enhancing transparency may be useful to reduce incentives for excessive risk-taking (moral hazard), it may also increase the risk of inefficient bank runs.

Suggested Citation

  • Dr. Nicole Allenspach, 2009. "Banking and Transparency: Is More Information Always Better?," Working Papers 2009-11, Swiss National Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:snb:snbwpa:2009-11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.snb.ch/en/publications/research/working-papers/2009/working_paper_2009_11
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tito Cordella & Eduardo Levy Yeyati, 1998. "Public Disclosure and Bank Failures," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 45(1), pages 110-131, March.
    2. Ari Hyytinen & Tuomas Takalo, 2002. "Enhancing Bank Transparency: A Re-assessment," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 6(3), pages 429-445.
    3. Yehning Chen & Iftekhar Hasan, 2008. "Why Do Bank Runs Look Like Panic? A New Explanation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(2-3), pages 535-546, March.
    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. Blum, Jurg M., 2002. "Subordinated debt, market discipline, and banks' risk taking," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(7), pages 1427-1441, July.
    6. Verrecchia, Robert E., 2001. "Essays on disclosure," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1-3), pages 97-180, December.
    7. Boot, Arnoud W. A. & Schmeits, Anjolein, 2000. "Market Discipline and Incentive Problems in Conglomerate Firms with Applications to Banking," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 240-273, July.
    8. Chen, Yehning & Hasan, Iftekhar, 2006. "The transparency of the banking system and the efficiency of information-based bank runs," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 307-331, July.
    9. Jason Furman & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1998. "Economic Crises: Evidence and Insights from East Asia," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(2), pages 1-136.
    10. Hyytinen, Ari & Takalo, Tuomas, 2001. "Preventing Systemic Crises through Bank Transparency," Discussion Papers 776, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    11. Healy, Paul M. & Palepu, Krishna G., 2001. "Information asymmetry, corporate disclosure, and the capital markets: A review of the empirical disclosure literature," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 405-440, September.
    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. François Guillemin & Maria Semenova, 2020. "Transparency and market discipline: evidence from the Russian interbank market," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 219-251, June.

    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. Faidon Kalfaoglou & Alexandros Sarris, 2006. "Modeling the Components of Market Discipline," Working Papers 36, Bank of Greece.
    2. Usman Bashir & Shoaib Khan & Abdulhafiz Jones & Muntazir Hussain, 2021. "Do banking system transparency and market structure affect financial stability of Chinese banks?," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 54(1), pages 1-41, February.
    3. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2012_009 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Diego Moreno & Tuomas Takalo, 2016. "Optimal Bank Transparency," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(1), pages 203-231, February.
    5. Diego Moreno & Tuomas Takalo, 2016. "Optimal Bank Transparency," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(1), pages 203-231, February.
    6. Ryuichiro Izumi, 2021. "Opacity: Insurance and Fragility," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 40, pages 146-169, April.
    7. Hyytinen, Ari & Takalo, Tuomas, 2001. "Preventing Systemic Crises through Bank Transparency," Discussion Papers 776, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    8. Jungherr, Joachim, 2016. "Bank opacity and financial crises," Economics Working Papers ADE2016/02, European University Institute.
    9. Jungherr, Joachim, 2018. "Bank opacity and financial crises," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 157-176.
    10. Bowo Setiyono & Amine Tarazi, 2014. "Disclosure, ownership structure and bank risk: Evidence from Asia," Working Papers hal-00947590, HAL.
    11. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2003_025 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Hyytinen, Ari & Takalo, Tuomas, 2001. "Preventing Systemic Crises through Bank Transparency," Discussion Papers 776, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    13. Guillemin, François, 2020. "Governance by depositors, bank runs and ambiguity aversion," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    14. Nier, Erlend W., 2005. "Bank stability and transparency," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 342-354, April.
    15. Ari Hyytinen & Tuomas Takalo, 2002. "Enhancing Bank Transparency: A Re-assessment," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 6(3), pages 429-445.
    16. Qian, Meijun & Tanyeri, Başak, 2017. "Litigation and mutual-fund runs," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 119-135.
    17. Semenova, M., 2011. "Bank Runs and Costly Information," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, issue 10, pages 31-52.
    18. Chen, Yehning & Hasan, Iftekhar, 2006. "The transparency of the banking system and the efficiency of information-based bank runs," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 307-331, July.
    19. Karima Bouaiss & Hervé Alexandre & Catherine Refait-Alexandre, 2017. "Will Bank Transparency really Help Financial Markets and Regulators?," Working Papers hal-01637917, HAL.
    20. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2009_029 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Hasman, Augusto & López, Ángel L. & SamartIín, Margarita, 2011. "Government, taxes and banking crises," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 2761-2770, October.
    22. Nier, Erlend & Baumann, Ursel, 2006. "Market discipline, disclosure and moral hazard in banking," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 332-361, July.
    23. Hasman, Augusto & Samartín, Margarita, 2023. "Government intervention, linkages and financial fragility," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    banking; transparency; financial stability; bank run;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    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:snb:snbwpa:2009-11. 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: Enzo Rossi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/snbgvch.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.