ECON 333 – Financial Intermediation and Crises

This course applies economic theory to understand the functions and fragility of financial intermediation. The main focus of this course is to learn theoretical models of strategic interactions among economic agents to examine the causes and amplification mechanisms of banking crises. Through the lens of the models, we will discuss how to interpret the recent episodes of banking crises. We will then use the models to evaluate the effectiveness of various government policies in decreasing fragility. These concepts apply not only to traditional depository institutions but also to shadow banks and digitization.