U.K. guidelines on the introduction of new regulations require that politicians and civil servants should “think small first” when deciding whether and how to introduce new regulations that affect business. Similar guidelines are currently being adopted across the EU. This paper presents the...

In this paper, we document how European companies can use financial tunnelling to the disadvantageof minority shareholders, despite improved legislation directed at eliminating such activities. In fourcase studies, two German and two Italian, we document how newly established corporate...

This paper examines the role of bond ratings and the effects of rating-based regulations in thecorporate bond market. Exploiting an unanticipated mechanical change in how the benchmarkLehman bond indices are constructed in 2005, we show that rating-induced market segmentationof the bond market...

The roles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have become increasingly controversial in the modern world of residential mortgage finance. We describe the special features of these two companies and their roles in the mortgage markets. We then discuss the controversies that surround them and offer...

The paper evaluates the performance of three popular monetary policy rules when the central bank is learning aboutthe parameter values of a simple New Keynesian model. The three policies are: (1) the optimal non-inertial rule; (2)the optimal history-dependent rule; (3) the optimal price-level...

Using an options-based approach, we compute the value of the state guaranteefor the liability side of CS and UBS. The insurance premiums forthese two system-relevant banks are calculated in a dynamic setup from2004 until 2009 in quarterly steps for time horizons of one and five years.The model...