Looting: The Economic Underworld of Bankruptcy for Profit

George A. Akerlof and

George A. Akerlof Daniel E. Koshland, Sr. Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics - University of California, Berkeley

Paul M. Romer

PMR

Paul M. Romer

Discussants: N. Gregory Mankiw and

N. Gregory Mankiw Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics - Harvard University

Robert E. Hall

Robert E. Hall Robert and Carole McNeil Joint Hoover Senior Fellow and Professor of Economics - Stanford University

DURING THE 1980s, a number of unusual financial crises occurred. In Chile, for example, the financial sector collapsed, leaving the government with responsibility for extensive foreign debts. In the United States, large numbers of government-insured savings and loans became insolvent-and the government picked up the tab. In Dallas, Texas, real estate prices and construction continued to boom even after vacancies had skyrocketed, and then suffered a dramatic collapse. Also in the United States, the junk bond market, which fueled the takeover wave, had a similar boom and bust. In this paper, we use simple theory and direct evidence to highlight a common thread that runs through these four episodes. The theory suggests that this common thread may be relevant to other cases in which countries took on excessive foreign debt, governments had to bail out insolvent financial institutions, real estate prices increased dramatically and then fell, or new financial markets experienced a boom and bust. We describe the evidence, however, only for the cases of financial crisis in Chile, the thrift crisis in the United States, Dallas real estate and thrifts, and junk bonds.