The dark side of bank wholesale funding

B-Tier
Journal: Journal of Financial Intermediation
Year: 2011
Volume: 20
Issue: 2
Pages: 248-263

Authors (2)

Huang, Rocco (not in RePEc) Ratnovski, Lev (European Central Bank)

Score contribution per author:

1.005 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Banks increasingly use short-term wholesale funds to supplement traditional retail deposits. Existing literature mainly points to the "bright side" of wholesale funding: sophisticated financiers can monitor banks, disciplining bad but refinancing good ones. This paper models a "dark side" of wholesale funding. In an environment with a costless but noisy public signal on bank project quality, short-term wholesale financiers have lower incentives to conduct costly monitoring, and instead may withdraw based on negative public signals, triggering inefficient liquidations. Comparative statics suggest that such distortions of incentives are smaller when public signals are less relevant and project liquidation costs are higher, e.g., when banks hold mostly relationship-based small business loans.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:jfinin:v:20:y:2011:i:2:p:248-263
Journal Field
Finance
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-29