Interventions in Markets with Adverse Selection: Implications for Discount Window Stigma

Huberto Ennis

No 17-1, Working Paper from Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

Abstract: I study the implications for central bank discount window stigma of the model by Philippon and Skreta (2012). I take an equilibrium perspective for a given discount window program instead of following the program-design approach of the original paper. This allows me to narrow the focus on the model's positive predictions. In the model, firms (banks) need to borrow to finance a productive project. There is limited liability and firms have private information about their ability to repay their debts. This creates an adverse selection problem. The central bank can ameliorate the impact of adverse selection by lending to firms. Discount window borrowing is observable and it may be taken as a signal of firms' credit worthiness. Under some conditions, firms borrowing from the discount window may pay higher interest rates to borrow in the market, a phenomenon often associated with the presence of stigma. I discuss these conditions in detail and what they suggest about the relevance of stigma as an empirical phenomenon.

Keywords: Banking; Federal Reserve; Central Bank; Policy; Lender of last resort (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E51 E58 G21 G28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2017-01-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-dge, nep-mac and nep-mon
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.richmondfed.org/-/media/richmondfedorg ... 2017/pdf/wp17-01.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Interventions in Markets with Adverse Selection: Implications for Discount Window Stigma (2019)
Working Paper: Interventions in markets with adverse selection: Implications for discount window stigma (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedrwp:17-01

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper from Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christian Pascasio ().