Bank Risk-Taking in a Small Open Economy.

I develop an open economy model with banks facing foreign borrowing limits. The interaction of banks' limited liability and deposit insurance leads banks into socially excessive risk-taking, which involves credit volume and not the type of credit. The novel result is that, under a realistic calibration, a lower foreign interest rate reduces the excessive bank risk-taking. Since the foreign borrowing limit is binding, this lower rate does not boost banks' credit, but rather decreases it, since for a given capital the lower rate reduces the default probability of banks, which diminishes their risk-taking incentives. Through the same mechanism, a greater access to the international credit markets reduces the excessive risk-taking by banks. Hence, less banking regulation to achieve socially efficient risk-taking is required after a foreign rate reduction and a higher foreign borrowing limit.