International College of Economics and Finance

Research Seminar

December 20 at 4.40 pm, room 3211 (Shabolovka st., 26) ICEF held the Research seminar.
Speaker: Toni Ahnert (LSE)


December 20 
at 4.40 pm, room 3211 ICEF held the Research seminar.
Speaker: Toni Ahnert (LSE)
Theme: «Crisis, Coordination, and Contagion»
Venue: Shabolovka st. 26, building 3, room 3211

Abstract: This paper explores how private information acquisition affects the probability of a financial crisis. I study a global coordination game of regime change in which a crisis occurs if sufficiently many creditors run on a bank or do not roll over debt to a sovereign. Creditors receive noisy private information about the solvency of the bank or sovereign and choose ex-ante whether to improve the quality of their information at a cost. Learning adverse public news about the solvency of the bank or sovereign increases the strategic uncertainty among creditors. This induces a creditor to acquire information to align his decision with that of other creditors. The acquisition of private information amplifies the probability of a financial crisis since informed creditors are more likely to act on adverse news. In an extension with news about another bank (Lehman) or sovereign (Greece), I demonstrate that the presence of an information acquisition choice makes bank runs systemic and sovereign debt crises contagious.Everyone interested is welcome to attend!



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