This paper is an early response to Campbell's (2006) call to analyze the role of financial intermediaries in household finance. We first sketch a basic theory of financial advice that proceeds from cognitive errors and costly information acquisition. We then derive hypotheses about honest and...

In an environment of near-zero yields for traditional asset classes and tightening bank regulation, debt in privately arranged loans has become an interesting alternative to publicly distributed bonds for borrowers and professional investors. Key questions for potential investors concern the...

We show that multi-bank loan pools improve the risk-return profile of banks ̕loan business. Banks write simple contracts on the proceeds from pooled loan portfolios, taking into account the free-rider problems in joint loan production. Thus, banks benefit greatly from diversifying credit risk...

Liquidity premiums have been widely documented for equity and bond markets. However, there is a lack of easily implementable measures of systematic liquidity for bond markets, which are typically far less liquid. We show that a simple liquidity factor - based on the difference between corporate...

We show that multi-bank loan pools improve the risk-return profile of regional banks' loan business. Banks write simple contracts on the proceeds from pooled loan portfolios, taking into account the agency problems in joint loan production. Thereby, banks benefit from diversifying credit risk...

We develop a framework for partially hedging the market risk of oil reserves through appropriately allocating financial assets in 'oil revenue' or 'petroleum' funds. Empirically, the hedge potential is substantial even when using relatively coarse partitions of the investment universe, such as...

We show that multi-bank loan pools improve the risk-return profile of banks' loan business. Banks write simple contracts on the proceeds from pooled loan portfolios, taking into account the free-rider problems in joint loan production. Thus, banks benefit greatly from diversifying credit risk...