Banks and Liquidity
探讨银行资产负债两端的矛盾：资产端发放非流动性贷款，负债端提供活期流动性，这种结构可能引发挤兑。作者基于Diamond和Rajan（2001a）的模型，解释为何银行的脆弱资本结构反而有助于创造流动性。
Banks perform valuable activities on either side of their balance sheets. On the asset side, they make loans to difficult, illiquid borrowers. On the liability side, they provide liquidity on demand to depositors. But there seems to be a fundamental incompatibility between the two activities: the demands for liquidity by depositors may arrive at an inconvenient time and force the fire-sale liquidation of illiquid assets. Furthermore, because depositors are served in sequence, the prospect of fire sales may precipitate self-fulfilling runs that further jeopardize bank activities. Is this an aberration, stemming from historical accident, and enshrined by deposit insurance? Or is there logic, hitherto unnoticed, for the bank’s choice of activities? Our recent work suggests that the answer to the latter question is yes. In order to describe why a bank’s fragile capital structure allows it to create liquidity and to explain why bank loans are illiquid, we present a simple example based on Diamond and Rajan (2001a).