We use days with tail sovereign CDS spread changes of peripheral countries to identify the effects of shocks to the cost of borrowing of these countries on stock returns of banks from other countries. We find that tail sovereign GIIPS CDS changes have an asymmetric impact in that bank stocks...

Large institutional investors own an increasing share of equity markets in the U.S. The implications of this development for financial markets are still unclear. The paper presents novel empirical evidence that ownership by large institutions predicts higher volatility and greater noise in stock...

Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and private-label mortgage-backed securities (MBS) backed by nonprime loans played a central role in the recent financial crisis. Little is known, however, about the underlying forces that drove investor demand for these securitizations. Using micro-data on...

The moral hazard incentives of the bank safety net predict that distressed banks take on more risk and higher leverage. Since many factors reduce these incentives, including charter value, regulation, and managerial incentives, the net economic effect of these incentives is an empirical...