The Macroprudential Role of Stock Markets

A financial crisis is an event of sudden information acquisition about the collateral backing short-term debt in credit markets. When investors see a financial crisis coming, however, they react by more intensively acquiring information about firms in stock markets, revealing those that are weaker, which as a consequence end up cut off from credit. This cleansing effect of stock markets’ information on credit markets’ composition discourage information acquisition about the collateral of the firms remaining in credit markets, slowing down credit growth and potentially preventing a crisis. Production of information in stock markets, then, acts as a macroprudential tool in the economy.