On August 11, 2021, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 5.4% per year increase in the CPI for the third consecutive month, intensifying the ongoing debate about whether high inflation will prove temporary or more lasting. This paper seeks to inform this debate by evaluating the...

I use the global crisis of 1914 as a window onto the phenomenon of investor reaction to complex news — such as sudden political upheaval. Based on a novel database of all stocks traded on the NYSE during 1914, along with “real-time” news accounts from major newspapers, I show that NYSE...

The objective of this paper is to examine the absolute and risk-adjusted effects on distribution rates and total wealth created by adding loss-limiting trend following strategies to buy and hold portfolios. Using 150 years of equity and bond data, we found that applying trend following to...

Financial markets and financial intermediation are essential to well-functioning economy. They perform the role of channeling funds to parties that have value creating investment opportunities. However, asymmetric information can seriously impair the process when parties to the financial...

At least since the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2009, the problem of too-big-to-fail (TBTF) has received widespread attention. The research conducted in this context has, however, generally focused on the econometric aspect and the contribution of the TBTF doctrine to the financial crisis of...

The Great Depression is infamous for banking panics, which were a symptomatic of a phenomenon that scholars have labeled a contagion of fear. Using geocoded, microdata on bank distress, we develop metrics that illuminate the incidence of these events and how banks that remained in operation...

Aim: Financial crises are dangerous and frightening events with potentially severe consequences for investors, financial systems and even whole economies. Hence, we suppose that market participants show increased proneness to emotionally biased decisions during times of market distress. We test...

After the Latin American Debt Crisis of 1982, the official response worldwide turned to minimum capital standards to promote stable banking systems. Despite their existence, however, such standards have still not prevented periodic disruptions in the banking sectors of various countries. After...

There is a large body of literature analyzing the onset of the Great Depression or the factors influencing economic recovery in the 1930s, especially the New Deal. The role of income inequality before and during the Great Depression, however, has almost never been discussed thoroughly. This...

Credit score cutoff rules result in very similar potential borrowers being treated differently by mortgage lenders. Recent research has used variation induced by these rules to investigate the connection between securitization and lender moral hazard in the recent financial crisis. However, the...