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  R&R Theoretical Economics  

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

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

with Konrad Adler

We study the incentives of overlapping owners to sustain tacit collusion in a simple dynamic model where - due to agency frictions - firm managers derive a short-term private benefit from defection. 

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. 

On the Relationship between Borrower and Bank risk

with Ulrich Schüwer

We use tools from survival analysis to study bank failure risk in a model with imperfect correlation in loan defaults where borrower credit worth depends on a systematic risk factor and idiosyncratic frailty factors. 

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

I show how to use the sunspot-based approach to investigate the interplay between limited commitment, bank bailouts, and endogenous run risk in a canonical model of financial intermediation.

Unequal and Unstable: Income Inequality and Bank Risk 

with Ulrich Schüwer

We investigate a new channel through which income inequality shapes bank risk: risk-shifting.  

WORK  IN PROGRESS 

Partial deposits (with Todd Keister)

The bail-in game (with Todd Keister)

Anticompetitive effects of loan covenants (with Konrad Adler)