Financial Crisis, Bank Behaviour and Credit Crunch [Hardcover]

This book explores some relevant distortions and market failures in financial and banking markets caused by the recent financial crisis and offers important insights to policymakers as well. After having introduced the reader to the economic background behind the origin of the present financial turmoil, the book proposes a distinct angle to look at some macro and microeconomic aspects. The volume discusses whether and to what extent policies, implemented by governments and monetary authorities to countervail bank defaults and avoid a disastrous financial instability, have in some way determined opportunistic conducts (moral hazard), changes in banks behaviour, distortive incentives and market failures. Furthermore, the book offers a viewpoint on the effects of the evolution of regulation for the banking sector. Finally, the book assesses how the increase in the cost of funding and the shrinking in credit supply (credit crunch) has modified the financial structure of small and medium firms. To illustrate this, some specific cases at Italian regional level are examined.

Part I Genesis and evolution of the global financial crisis:?The crisis of international finance, the Eurozone and economic growth by Otto Hieronymi.-The European Twin Sovereign Debt and Banking Crises by Beniamino Moro.-Part II Bank opportunistic behaviour and structural reforms: Moral-hazard conduct in the European banks during the first wave of the present financial crisis by Paolo Mattana and Stefania P. S. Rossi.-?Agency Problems in Banking: Types of and Incentives for Risk Shifting by Miguel A. Duran and Ana Lozano-Vivas.-?Structural Reform, Too-Big-To Fail and Banks as Public Utilities in Europe by Philip Molyneux.-?Part III Bank regulation, credit access and bank performance:?Did Basel II affect credit growth to corporate borrowers durl“2