This paper takes the view that a major contributing factor to the financial crisis of 2008 was a failure to correctly assess and price the risk of default. In order to analyse default risk in the macroeconomy, a simple general equilibrium model with banks and financial intermediation is...

We show that the nature and extent of trade is significantly affected by the pricing policy that firms are allowed to employ. A switch from discriminatory to non-discriminatory pricing (e.g. strict anti-dumping laws) leads to a switch from two-way trade to one-way trade. It is far from true that...

Financial constraints are fundamental to empirical research in finance and economics. We propose two novel tests to evaluate how well measures of financial constraints actually capture constraints. We find that firms classified as constrained according to five popular measures do not in fact...

This paper explores the effects of shifts in interest rates on corporate leverage and default. We develop a dynamic model in which the relationship between firms and their outside financiers is affected by a moral hazard problem and entrepreneurs' initial wealth is scarce. The endogenous link...

Do religious beliefs affect real economic decisions? We investigate this fundamental question by comparing default rates on conventional and Islamic loans using a comprehensive monthly dataset from Pakistan that follows more than 150,000 loans over the period 2006:04 to 2008:12. We find robust...

We use a unique dataset to estimate the impact of a large credit supply shock on employment in Spain. We exploit marked differences in banks' health at the onset of the Great Recession. Several weak banks were rescued by the State and they reduced credit more than other banks. We compare...

We analyze government interventions to alleviate debt overhang among banks. Interventions generate two types of rents. Informational rents arise from opportunistic participation based on private information while macroeconomic rents arise from free riding. Minimizing informational rents is a...