IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpga/9803001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Model of Financial Fragility

Author

Listed:
  • Roger Lagunoff

    (Georgetown University)

  • Stacey L. Schreft

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas)

Abstract

This paper presents a dynamic, stochastic game-theoretic model of financial fragility. The model has two essential features. First, interrelated portfolios and payment commitments forge financial linkages among agents. Second, iid shocks to investment projects’ operations at a single date cause some projects to fail. Investors who experience losses from project failures reallocate their portfolios, thereby breaking some linkages. In the Pareto-efficient symmetric equilibrium studied, two related types of financial crises can occur in response. One occurs gradually as defaults spread, causing even more links to break. An economy is more fragile ex post the more severe this financial crisis. The other type of crisis occurs instantaneously when forward-looking investors preemptively shift their wealth into a safe asset in anticipation of the contagion affecting them in the future. An economy is more fragile ex ante the earlier all of its linkages break from such a crisis. The paper also considers whether fragility is worse for larger economies.

Suggested Citation

  • Roger Lagunoff & Stacey L. Schreft, 1998. "A Model of Financial Fragility," Game Theory and Information 9803001, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 30 Apr 1998.
  • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpga:9803001
    Note: Type of Document - .pdf; prepared on IBM PC; to print on HP;
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/game/papers/9803/9803001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kreps, David M & Wilson, Robert, 1982. "Sequential Equilibria," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 863-894, July.
    2. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1991. "Financial Markets and Financial Crises," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number glen91-1.
    3. Franklin Allen & Douglas Gale, 1976. "Optimal Financial Crises," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 97-01, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    4. J. M. Keynes, 1937. "The General Theory of Employment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 51(2), pages 209-223.
    5. Atkeson, Andrew & Rios-Rull, Jose-Victor, 1996. "The balance of payments and borrowing constraints: An alternative view of the Mexican crisis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-4), pages 331-349, November.
    6. Franklin Allen & Douglas Gale, 2000. "Financial Contagion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(1), pages 1-33, February.
    7. Cooper, R. & Corbae, D., 1997. "Financial Fragility and the Great Depression," Working Papers 97-08, University of Iowa, Department of Economics.
    8. Krasa, Stefan & Villamil, Anne P, 1992. "A Theory of Optimal Bank Size," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 44(4), pages 725-749, October.
    9. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & John Moore, 1997. "Credit Chains," Working Papers 1997-2, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    10. Lagunoff, Roger & Schreft, Stacey L, 1999. "Financial Fragility with Rational And Irrational Exuberance," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 31(3), pages 531-560, August.
    11. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    12. 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.
    13. Dani Rodrik & Andres Velasco, 1999. "Short-Term Capital Flows," NBER Working Papers 7364, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Cass, David & Shell, Karl, 1983. "Do Sunspots Matter?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(2), pages 193-227, April.
    15. Harold L. Cole & Timothy J. Kehoe, 2000. "Self-Fulfilling Debt Crises," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(1), pages 91-116.
    16. Rochet, Jean-Charles & Tirole, Jean, 1996. "Interbank Lending and Systemic Risk," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(4), pages 733-762, November.
    17. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & John Moore, 1997. "Credit Chains," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 118, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.
    18. Hiroshi Fujiki & Edward J. Green & Akira Yamazaki, 1999. "Sharing the risk of settlement failure," Working Papers 594, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    19. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    20. Frederic S. Mishkin, 1991. "Asymmetric Information and Financial Crises: A Historical Perspective," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Markets and Financial Crises, pages 69-108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Milton Friedman & L. J. Savage, 1948. "The Utility Analysis of Choices Involving Risk," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 279-279.
    22. 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)

    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. Franklin Allen & Douglas Gale, 2000. "Financial Contagion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(1), pages 1-33, February.
    2. De Bandt, Olivier & Hartmann, Philipp, 2000. "Systemic risk: A survey," Working Paper Series 35, European Central Bank.
    3. Ennis, Huberto M. & Keister, Todd, 2005. "Government policy and the probability of coordination failures," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 939-973, May.
    4. Claudio Borio, 2011. "Rediscovering the Macroeconomic Roots of Financial Stability Policy: Journey, Challenges, and a Way Forward," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 87-117, December.
    5. Makoto Nirei & John Stachurski & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2018. "Trade Clustering and Power Laws in Financial Markets (Published in Theoretical Economics, 15:1365?1398, 2020)," CARF F-Series CARF-F-450, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    6. Nirei, Makoto & Stachurski, John & Watanabe, Tsutomu, 2020. "Trade clustering and power laws in financial markets," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(4), November.
    7. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2003. "Hot Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(6), pages 1262-1292, December.
    8. de la Torre, Augusto & Ize, Alain, 2013. "The foundations of macroprudential regulation : a conceptual roadmap," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6575, The World Bank.
    9. David Hirshleifer & Siew Hong Teoh, 2003. "Herd Behaviour and Cascading in Capital Markets: a Review and Synthesis," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 9(1), pages 25-66, March.
    10. Steven Ongena, 1999. "Lending Relationships, Bank Default and Economic Activity," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(2), pages 257-280.
    11. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2004_010 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. G. Rejikumar & Aswathy Asokan-Ajitha & Sofi Dinesh & Ajay Jose, 2022. "The role of cognitive complexity and risk aversion in online herd behavior," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 585-621, June.
    13. Philippe Jehiel, 2022. "Analogy-Based Expectation Equilibrium and Related Concepts:Theory, Applications, and Beyond," Working Papers halshs-03735680, HAL.
    14. Maryam Farboodi, 2014. "Intermediation and Voluntary Exposure to Counterparty Risk," 2014 Meeting Papers 365, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Charles M. Kahn & William Roberds, 2002. "Payments settlement under limited enforcement: Private versus public systems," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2002-33, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    16. Morone, Andrea & Caferra, Rocco, 2020. "Inequalities in financial markets: Evidences from a laboratory experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    17. James J. McAndrews & William Roberds, 1999. "Payment intermediation and the origins of banking," Staff Reports 85, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    18. Koessler, Frédéric & Noussair, Charles & Ziegelmeyer, Anthony, 2008. "Parimutuel betting under asymmetric information," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(7-8), pages 733-744, July.
    19. Alvarez, Fernando & Barlevy, Gadi, 2021. "Mandatory disclosure and financial contagion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    20. Saad, Mohsen & Samet, Anis, 2020. "Collectivism and commonality in liquidity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 137-162.
    21. Freixas, Xavier & Parigi, Bruno M & Rochet, Jean-Charles, 2000. "Systemic Risk, Interbank Relations, and Liquidity Provision by the Central Bank," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 32(3), pages 611-638, August.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General

    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:wpa:wuwpga:9803001. 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: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    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.