Affine models describe the stylized time-series properties of the term structure of interest rates in a reasonable manner, they generalize relatively easily to higher dimensions, and a vast academic literature exists relating to their implementation. This combination of characteristics makes the...

This paper studies the efficiency of financial intermediation through securitization in a model with heterogeneous investment projects and asymmetric information about the quality of securitized assets. I show that when retaining part of the risk, the issuer of securitized assets may credibly...

The author explores the role of governance mechanisms as a means of reducing financial fragility. First, he develops a simple theoretical general-equilibrium model in which instability arises due to an agency problem resulting from a conflict of interest between the borrower and lender. In...

The authors examine how the use of extreme value theory yields collateral requirements that are robust to extreme fluctuations in the market price of the asset used as collateral. In particular, they study the risk and cost attributes of market risk measures by constructing a risk-cost frontier...

The authors study a general-equilibrium economy in which agents have the ability to invest in a risky technology. The investment risk cannot be fully insured with optimal contracts, because shocks are private information. The authors show that the presence of these risks may lead to an...