In this paper, we analyse a novel panel data set to compare the relevance of alternative measures of capitalisation for bank failure during the 2007-10 crisis, and to search for evidence of manipulated Basel risk-weights.  Compared with the unweighted leverage ratio, we find the risk-weighted...

We posit that screening IPOs requires specialized labor which, in the short run, is in fixed supply.  Hence, a sudden increase in demand for IPO financing increases the compensation of IPO screening labor.  Increased compensation results in reduced screening which encourages sub-marginal firms...

We model corporate governance in a world with competitive securities markets as well as markets for corporate assets.  We show that varying the liquidity and opacity of corporate assets, the vitality of the market for corporate control, and the costs of enforcing shareholder rights to cash...

We model long-run firm performance, management compensation, and corporate governance in a dynamic, nonstationary world.  We show that managerial compensation and governance policies, which, in a single-period context, can best be rationalized by self-serving managerial influence over board...

There is a growing policy interest in the role of financial structure in promoting development.  However, very little is known about how different financial structures emerge and evolve.  In this paper we empirically assess the political origins of financial structure.  Using...

In recent years bonuses tied to performance have become commonplace in banks and other financial institutions; indeed they now constitute a major part of employee compensation.  The practice was originally justified by academic work on principal-agent contracts, which argued that performance...

Rational demand for hedging products, where there is a risk of contractual nonperformance, is fundamentally different to that for indemnity insurance.  In particular, optimal demand is zero for infinitely risk averse individuals, and is nonmonotonic in risk aversion, wealth and price.  For...

Using data from the Philippines, this paper seeks to understand how households in the study area apparently manage to avoid falling in a debt trap in spite of frequent borrowing. Findings suggest this is achieved via three institutional features. First, most informal debt carries no interest. As...

Using a newly constructed data set, we compare sources of funds and investment strategies of venture capital (VC) funds in Germany, Israel, Japan and the UK. Sources of VC funds differ significantly across countries, e.g. banks are particularly important in Germany, corporations in Israel,...