What Contract Theory Teaches Us about Regulating Banks

Caterina Lepore, Caspar Siegert, and Quynh-Anh Vo at Bank Underground:

What can Nobel-winning contract theory teach us about regulating banks?: The 2016 Nobel Prize in economics has been awarded to Professors Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström for their contributions to contract theory. The theory offers a wide range of real-life applications, from corporate governance to constitutional laws. And, as the post will hopefully convince you, contract theory is also helpful in regulating banks! To this end, we will unpack the outline of the theory and apply it to a number of real-world conundrums: How to pay banks’ chief executives and traders? How to fund a bank’s balance sheet? How to regulate banks?

What is Contract Theory? ...