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The Covid-19 crisis is unique in several respects. This devastating recession does not have an economic origin, will dance largely to the tune of non-economic factors, and is truly global. The policy response has been equally unique, in terms of speed, size and scope, eliciting an unprecedented concerted effort combining monetary, fiscal and prudential policies. This has contained the fallout. At the time of writing, financial markets have rebounded to the point of looking exuberant, but it all feels more like a truce than a peace treaty. The crisis is transitioning from the liquidity to the solvency phase in a context of limited and shrinking room for policy manoeuvre. All this raises difficult near- and longer-term challenges. Rebuilding policy buffers in all policy areas is likely to be the policy challenge of the decade ahead.

The issue of banking crises is of a significant importance due to their impact on the economic situation and having revealed the main causes of a bank distress, it should be possible to avoid some of them in the future by taking appropriate measures. The banking crisis during the Great Depression belongs to the biggest crises in the history and provides a great opportunity to properly examine the behaviour of U.S. banks. Therefore, the aim of my thesis is to identify the key moments of the banking crisis, analyse the adopted policies and regulations, reveal the main causes of bank suspensions and to examine the bank balance sheets to state which type of bank was the most resilient. The results implied that the crucial event was a fall of a large investment bank in 1930 that initiated the wave of banking panic when banks started fighting against both illiquidity and insolvency problems. The analysis showed that mutual saving banks were the most successful and that the trust of the public together with insufficient deposit insurance are key factors influencing the bank runs. However, the major drawback is considered to be the excessive risk banks were facing even before the stock market crash.

The new Insolvency Act sets down the presupposition identified with insolvency. The apparent conceptual homogeneity of such conceals a split associated with the mode in which proceedings are brought (involuntary and voluntary bankruptcy). This study explores the relationship between insolvency and its warning signs, highlighting the difficulty concerning probative evidence as well as the application of both notions for the interested parties and the judge. La nueva Ley Concursal impone formalmente la unidad de presupuesto objetivo, identificado con la insolvencia. Tras la aparente homogeneidad conceptual de dicho presupuesto se oculta un desdoblamiento ligado al modo de instar el procedimiento (concurso necesario y voluntario). El trabajo establece las relaciones entre la insolvencia y sus indicios reveladores, poniendo de relieve las dificultades probatorias y de aplicación de ambas nociones, tanto para los interesados como para el juez.

Although the speed of turnover of certain types of assets is not an end in itself, it can be claimed that it is a lever for achieving top company goals – maximizing profit in the long run. Illiquidity is often the cause of the debt crisis that has engulfed the budgets of certain countries as well as companies (real sector). In theory and practice, there are different understandings of the term liquidity, as well as its importance for the healthy growth and development. The paper points out the differences in the understanding of this term and the different concepts of pursuing liquidity policy, using methodologies of determining the liquidity and solvency of the companies (enterprises). Based on the methodological and theoretical aspects, the liquidity situation of the economy of the Republic of Srpska has been analyzed which can be useful for policymakers of the Republic of Srpska.

We examine the financial conditions of dealers that participated in two of the Federal Reserve’s lender-of-last-resort (LOLR) facilities--the Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) and the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF)--that provided liquidity against a range of assets during 2008-09. Dealers with lower equity returns and greater leverage prior to borrowing from the facilities were more likely to participate in the programs, borrow more, and--in the case of the TSLF--at higher bidding rates. Dealers with less liquid collateral on their balance sheets before the facilities were introduced also tended to borrow more. There also appear to be some interaction effects between financial performance and balance sheet liquidity in explaining dealer behavior. The results suggest that both financial performance and balance sheet liquidity play a role in LOLR utilization.

I show theoretically and empirically that cash holdings can help rationalize the low returns to distressed equity. In my model, levered firms with financing constraints optimally choose their cash holdings to eliminate liquidity risk and optimally default when insolvent. Using data on solvency, liquidity, and returns for US firms, I find evidence consistent with the model’s predictions: (1) In all solvency levels, the average firm holds enough liquid assets to cover its short-term liabilities; less solvent firms have (2) a higher fraction of their total assets in liquid assets and therefore (3) lower conditional betas and (4) lower returns; (5) the profits of long-short solvency strategies are highest among firms with low liquidity; and (6) the profits of long-short liquidity strategies are highest among firms with low solvency.

The paper analyses problems arising from the interdependence of liquidity provision in the financial system. Findings document, that liquidity shortage of minor financial players can translate into liquidity shortage for systemic relevant players, thereby putting the proper functioning of the overall financial system on the line. As contractual mechanisms to safeguard against this threat are absent in the wake of market frictions, prudent regulation and governmental provision of external liquidity is asked for in order to solve these problems.

How can one account for the puzzling behavior of insider-managers who, in stripping assets from the very firms they own, appear to be stealing from one pocket to fill the other? The authors suggest that such asset-stripping and failure to restructure are the consequences of interactions between insiders (manager-owners) and regional governments in a particular property rights regime. In this regime, the ability to realize value is limited by uncertainty and illiquidity, so managers have little incentive to increase value. As the central institutions that rule Russia have ceded their powers to the regions, regional governments have imposed various distortions on enterprises to protect local employment. Prospective outsider-investors doubt they can acquire the control rights they need for restructuring firms and doubt they can avoid the distortions regional governments impose on the firms in which they might invest. The result: little restructuring and little new investment. And regional governments, knowing the firms' taxable cash flows will have been reduced through cash flow diversion, have responded by collecting revenues in kind. To disentangle these vicious circles of control, the authors propose a pilot for transforming ownership in insider-dominated firms through a system of simultaneous tax-debt-for-equity conversion and resale through competitive auctions. The objective: to show regional governments, for example, that a more sustainable way to protect employment is to give managers incentives to increase enterprises' value by transferring effective control to investors. The proposed mechanism would provide cash benefits to insiders who agree to sell control to outside investors. The increased cash revenue (rather than in-kind or money surrogates) would enable regional governments to finance safety nets for the unemployed and to promote other regional initiatives.