Perspectives on Canadian Bank Insolvency during the 1930s
回应Carr等人对加拿大银行在1930年代享有资本宽容假说的质疑，通过引入机会成本估值和政府与会计行业的代理成本，证明原假说依然成立，并指出轻信会计和合同形式可能导致严重经济错误。
Carr, Mathewson and Quigley (1995) (CMQ) introduce new archival evidence to challenge the hypothesis that Canadian banks enjoyed considerable capital forbearance during the 1930s (Kryzanowski and Roberts 1993) (KR). This note examines what the CMQ evidence has to tell us once opportunity-cost valuation and agency costs in government and the accounting profession are stirred vigorously into the inferential stew. We show that none of the CMQ findings is inconsistent with the original KR argument on capital forbearance. More broadly, we demonstrate how serious economic error can result from taking accounting and contractual formalisms at their face value.