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Some have questioned the empirical relevance of moral hazard in the current episode of financial market turmoil, citing the fact that the equity holders in institutions receiving government support have suffered significant--and in a few cases, total--losses. But, this observation misses an important point about the moral hazard effects of government lending. The most direct effect of government credit or guarantees is to lower the cost of private credit to protected borrowers. Limiting the circumstances in which the benefiting institution will have insufficient liquidity to survive means that private debt holders bear less risk and have less incentive to constrain risk-taking by the borrower. Absent regulatory constraints, this encourages those institutions to take on more risks than they otherwise would, including by becoming more highly leveraged. The more leveraged a firm, the greater the incentive for management and equity to take on risk. Indeed, limited liability means that equity holders could find a negative net present value investment to be worthwhile, if it is risky enough. So the fact that equity has absorbed large losses is not strong evidence against moral hazard effects if the safety net protects--and reduces the cost of--debt. Indeed, the risk-shifting effect of moral hazard makes large losses to equity more likely to occur, because it makes large gambles more attractive.

t is also commonly argued that moral hazard, although a real and undesirable consequence of the safety net, is an unavoidable cost of the need to respond forcefully to prevent the disorderly failure of a large complex institution. This view seems to be based on the assumption that the systemic risks posed by large financial institutions--stemming from concentrated and correlated exposures among a complex web of counterparties--are an inherent and unavoidable trait of modern financial markets. But, the pervasiveness of such characteristics can itself be an endogenous consequence of moral hazard. If systemic risks at large financial institutions are particularly protected by the safety net of government credit, then such institutions will have an extra incentive to acquire precisely those risks.