We study a controlled experiment in which a bank's loan officers were incentivized based on originated loan volume to encourage prospecting for new business. While treated loan officers did attract new applications, both extensive and intensive margins of loan origination expanded (+31% new...

We model the widespread failure of contracts to share risk using available indices. A borrower and lender can share risk by conditioning repayments on an index. The lender has private information about the ability of this index to measure the true state that the borrower would like to hedge. The...

There is little evidence on how the large market for credit score improvement products affects consumers or credit market efficiency. A randomized encouragement design on a standard credit builder loan (CBL) identifies null average effects on whether consumers have a credit score and the score...

Standard economic theory says that unsecured, high-interest, short-term debt -- such as borrowing via credit cards and bank overdraft facilities -- helps individuals smooth consumption in the event of transitory income shocks. This paper shows that -- on average -- individuals do not use such...

This paper develops a network model of interbank lending, in which banks decide to extend credit to their potential borrowers. Borrowers are subject to shocks that may force them to default on their loans. In contrast to much of the previous literature on financial networks, we focus on how...

Lending standards are a direct measure of credit conditions. We use the micro data merged from three separate sources to construct this measure and document that an uncertain macroeconomic outlook, rather than banks' balance sheet positions, was an important reason that a majority of banks...

We document that banks which cut lending more during the Great Recession were lending to riskier firms. To explain this evidence, we build a competitive matching model of bank-firm relationships in which risky firms borrow from banks with low holding costs. Based on default probabilities and...

Research on leverage and asset-price fluctuations focuses on the direct effect of lax bank lending enabling financially-constrained investors to take excessive risks. Ignored are unconstrained investors speculating on higher prices during credit booms. To identify these two effects, we utilize...

A growing literature shows that credit indicators forecast aggregate real outcomes. While researchers have proposed various explanations, the economic mechanism behind these results remains an open question. In this paper, we show that a simple, frictionless, model explains empirical findings...