This paper analyzes the longer-term effect of Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funding through the default risk angle to further the understanding of the TARP program’s benefits and costs. Our subsample analyses show that both the treatment group (i.e., TARP recipients) and the control group (i.e., banks not receiving TARP funds) increased their default risk in the post-TARP stage lasting for almost a decade. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we further find that the long-lasting impact of TARP funding is higher in TARP banks compared to banks that did not receive such funding. The main findings still hold when we exclude the TARP recipients that exited the program early and deemed to be relatively healthy. Our findings indicate that the TARP funds didn’t improve but worsened recipients’ default risk, supporting the government guarantee’s moral hazard concerns.

本文通过违约风险角度分析问题资产救助计划（TARP）资金的长期影响，以进一步了解问题资产救助计划的收益和成本。我们的子样本分析表明，治疗组（即问题资产救助计划接受者）和对照组（即未收到问题资产救助计划资金的银行）在后问题资产救助计划阶段的违约风险均有所增加，持续了近十年。使用双重差分法，我们进一步发现，与未获得此类资金的银行相比，TARP 资金对 TARP 银行的长期影响更大。当我们排除那些提前退出该计划并被认为相对健康的不良资产救助计划受益人时，主要发现仍然成立。我们的研究结果表明，问题资产救助计划资金并没有改善，反而加剧了受助人的违约风险，支持了政府担保的道德风险担忧。