Thursday, 23 February 2012

More ideas againest free banking


In the first post, Chu's test showed in a certain period, the amount of bank failures in free banking is less than that in regulated banking and drew the conclusion of regulation is noneccesary. But can bank failures indicate the banking stability? It is not, in fact, banks failure is normal and it is a process of pushing regulation updating. So Chu's test also cannot support free banking.

Otherwise from that, in 2004, Hickson and Turner analyzed the deficiencies of free banking from other directions, which further defences the necessary of banking regulation.

First of all, they mentioned time-inconsistency problem. Since there is competitive market in free banking, banks are more difficult to regulate, therefore, depositors would never really know the value of loan portfolio and finally, the time-inconsistency problem was generated. Moreover, this asymmetric information problem also gives incentive of banks to over-issue liabilities. Even though, there was a limited liability system during free banking time, but that failed to reduce over-issue problem and cause more risky investment.

Another idea of Hickson and Turner, at the time of free banking, the liability ownership was limited, which helped to prevent banking stability. But in this case, it seems that banks are under regulated instead of free banking.

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