We study optimal government support following a rare disaster that creates heterogeneous firm liquidity needs. Firms’ increase in debt reduces their output due to moral hazard. Banks are subject to a minimum capital requirement that limits deposit insurance costs upon bad aggregate shocks. Without government support, firms’ moral hazard and banks’ funding frictions reinforce each other amplifying output losses. Optimal support is implemented with firm-specific transfers combined with the provision of aggregate risk insurance through a capital requirement relaxation and a public preferred equity stake in banks. Our results shed light on suboptimality features in the actual policy responses to Covid-19 lockdowns.

我们研究了一场罕见的灾难之后的最优政府支持，这种灾难造成了不同的公司流动性需求。由于道德风险，企业增加债务会降低产出。银行受到最低资本要求的约束，以限制不利总体冲击时的存款保险成本。如果没有政府的支持，企业的道德风险和银行的融资摩擦会相互加剧，从而放大产出损失。最佳支持是通过特定于公司的转移支付以及通过放宽资本要求和银行的公共优先股权提供综合风险保险来实施的。我们的结果揭示了对 Covid-19 封锁的实际政策响应中的次优特征。