IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-03415803.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Marking-to-Market: Panacea or Pandora's Box?

Author

Listed:
  • Guillaume Plantin

    (London Business School, Tepper School of Business - CMU - Carnegie Mellon University [Pittsburgh])

  • Haresh Sapra

    (University of Chicago)

  • Hyun Song Shin

    (Princeton University)

Abstract

Financial institutions have been at the forefront of the debate on the controversial shift in international standards from historical cost accounting to mark-to-market accounting. We show that the trade-offs at stake in this debate are far from one-sided. While the historical cost regime leads to some inefficiencies, marking-to-market may lead to other types of inefficiencies by injecting artificial risk that degrades the information value of prices, and induces suboptimal real decisions. We construct a framework that can weigh the pros and cons. We find that the damage done by marking-to-market is greatest when claims are (1) long–lived, (2) illiquid, and (3) senior. These are precisely the attributes of the key balance sheet items of banks and insurance companies. Our results therefore shed light on why banks and insurance companies have been the most vocal opponents of the shift to marking-to-market.

Suggested Citation

  • Guillaume Plantin & Haresh Sapra & Hyun Song Shin, 2008. "Marking-to-Market: Panacea or Pandora's Box?," Post-Print hal-03415803, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03415803
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-679X.2008.00281.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Antje Berndt & Rohan Douglas & Darrell Duffie & Mark Ferguson, "undated". "Measuring Default Risk Premia from Default Swap Rates and EDFs," GSIA Working Papers 2006-E31, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    2. Morris, Stephen & Shin, Hyun Song, 1998. "Unique Equilibrium in a Model of Self-Fulfilling Currency Attacks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 587-597, June.
    3. Frankel, David M. & Morris, Stephen & Pauzner, Ady, 2003. "Equilibrium selection in global games with strategic complementarities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 1-44, January.
    4. Carlsson, Hans & van Damme, Eric, 1993. "Global Games and Equilibrium Selection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(5), pages 989-1018, September.
    5. Francis A. Longstaff & Sanjay Mithal & Eric Neis, 2005. "Corporate Yield Spreads: Default Risk or Liquidity? New Evidence from the Credit Default Swap Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(5), pages 2213-2253, October.
    6. Douglas W. Diamond & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2005. "Liquidity Shortages and Banking Crises," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(2), pages 615-647, April.
    7. Dimitrios P Tsomocos & Xavier Freixas & Universitat Pompeu Fabra and CEPR, 2004. "Books vs. Fair Value Accounting in Banking, and Intertemporal Smoothing," Economics Series Working Papers 2004-FE-13, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    8. Lambert, Ra & Larcker, Df, 1987. "An Analysis Of The Use Of Accounting And Market Measures Of Performance In Executive-Compensation Contracts," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25, pages 85-129.
    9. Sloan, Richard G., 1993. "Accounting earnings and top executive compensation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1-3), pages 55-100, April.
    10. Bushman, Robert M. & Indjejikian, Raffi J., 1993. "Accounting income, stock price, and managerial compensation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1-3), pages 3-23, April.
    11. Guillaume Plantin & Jean-Charles Rochet, 2007. "Introduction to When Insurers Go Bust: An Economic Analysis of the Role and Design of Prudential Regulation," Introductory Chapters, in: When Insurers Go Bust: An Economic Analysis of the Role and Design of Prudential Regulation, Princeton University Press.
    12. Gary Gorton & Ping He & Lixin Huang, 2006. "Asset Prices When Agents are Marked-to-Market," NBER Working Papers 12075, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laurent Mathevet, 2010. "A contraction principle for finite global games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 42(3), pages 539-563, March.
    2. Shadmehr, Mehdi & Bernhardt, Dan, 2011. "Collective Action with Uncertain Payoffs: Coordination, Public Signals, and Punishment Dilemmas," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(4), pages 829-851, November.
    3. Bushman, Robert M. & Smith, Abbie J., 2001. "Financial accounting information and corporate governance," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1-3), pages 237-333, December.
    4. Heinemann, Frank & Illing, Gerhard, 2002. "Speculative attacks: unique equilibrium and transparency," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 429-450, December.
    5. Giancarlo Corsetti & Amil Dasgupta & Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2004. "Does One Soros Make a Difference? A Theory of Currency Crises with Large and Small Traders," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(1), pages 87-113.
    6. Chen, Yi-Chun & Takahashi, Satoru & Xiong, Siyang, 2014. "The robust selection of rationalizability," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 448-475.
    7. Alessandro Prati & Massimo Sbracia, 2002. "Currency crises and uncertainty about fundamentals," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 446, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    8. Drozd, Lukasz A. & Serrano-Padial, Ricardo, 2018. "Financial contracting with enforcement externalities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 153-189.
    9. Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2003. "Heterogeneity and Uniqueness in Interaction Games," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1402, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    10. Kováč, Eugen & Steiner, Jakub, 2013. "Reversibility in dynamic coordination problems," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 298-320.
    11. Oindrila Dey & Swapnendu Banerjee, 2022. "Incentives, Status and Thereafter: A Critical Survey," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 11(1), pages 95-115, June.
    12. Sergei Izmalkov & Muhamet Yildiz, 2010. "Investor Sentiments," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 21-38, February.
    13. Laurent Mathevet & Jakub Steiner, 2012. "Sand in the Wheels: A Dynamic Global-Game Approach," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp459, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    14. Angeletos, G.-M. & Lian, C., 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1065-1240, Elsevier.
    15. Guimaraes, Bernardo & Pereira, Ana Elisa, 2017. "Dynamic coordination among heterogeneous agents," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 13-33.
    16. Zhang, Jinqing & He, Liang & An, Yunbi, 2020. "Measuring banks’ liquidity risk: An option-pricing approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    17. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Nagore Iriberri, 2010. "Strategic Thinking," Levine's Working Paper Archive 661465000000001148, David K. Levine.
    18. Mason, Robin & Valentinyi, Ã kos, 2007. "The existence and uniqueness of monotone pure strategy equilibrium in Bayesian games," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 710, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    19. Jean-Marc Tallon, 2006. "Incertitude stratégique et sélection d'équilibre : deux applications," Revue d'économie industrielle, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(2), pages 6-6.
    20. Guimaraes, Bernardo & Morris, Stephen, 2007. "Risk and wealth in a model of self-fulfilling currency attacks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 2205-2230, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03415803. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.