RESEARCH 

Inequality and Financial Fragility    Journal of Monetary Economics, Vol. 115 (2020)

The distribution of wealth influences the government’s response to systemic banking crises and shapes financial fragility.

Allocating Losses: Bail-ins, Bailouts and Bank Regulation    Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 210 (2023) 

with Todd Keister

We study the interaction between a government's bailout policy and banks' willingness to impose losses on (or "bail-in") their investors. 

A Theory of Debt Maturity and Innovation    Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 2018 (2024) 

I propose a theory of debt maturity as an incentive device to motivate innovation when contracts are incomplete and shaped by ex-post renegotiation. 

Private Sunspots in Games of Coordinated Attack   Theoretical Economics, Vol. 20 (2025)  

I propose a new approach to endogenizing the probability of a self-fulfilling outcome in coordination games.

Unequal and Unstable: Income Inequality and Bank Risk   Accepted: Journal of Money, Credit and Banking

with Ulrich Schüwer

We present a model in which income inequality interacts with banks’ risk-taking incentives, generating financial instability.

When does overlapping ownership soften competition? The role of agency frictions and repeated interaction 

with Konrad Adler

Tacit collusion among firms is not necessarily easier when firms are owned by the same investor. Going from separate to common ownership actually sometimes has a pro-competitive effect.  

Smart Banks 

with Alkis Georgiadis-Harris and Maxi Guennewig

Since Diamond and Dybvig (1983), banks have been viewed as inherently fragile. We challenge this view in a general mechanism design framework with limited commitment. 

Bailouts and Financial Fragility Revisited 

Even when ex-post bailouts are efficient and ex-ante moral hazard is fully corrected, allowing bailouts can increase the incidence of runs and reduce ex-ante welfare. 

Oprimal Financial Intermediation 

with Maxi Guennewig

We revisit the Diamond-Rajan model of financial intermediation and demonstrate that a bank with an optimal financing structure is immune to runs. 

Borrower Heterogeneity and Bank Risk

with Ulrich Schüwer

We utilize tools from survival analysis to examine the risk of bank failure in a model with imperfect correlation in loan defaults. 

WORK  IN PROGRESS 

Limited commitment, bailouts, and run risk: a sunspot-based approach

Bailout limits and the bail-in game (with Todd Keister)

Anticompetitive effects of loan covenants (with Konrad Adler)