We study regulation of the auditing profession in a model where audit quality is unobservable and enforcing regulation is costly. The optimal audit standard falls short of the first-best audit quality, and is increasing in the riskiness of firms and in the amount of funding they seek. The model...

The paper examines whether international regulatory harmonization increases cross-border labor migration. To study this question, we analyze European Union (EU) initiatives that harmonized accounting and auditing standards. Regulatory harmonization should reduce economic mobility barriers,...

The emergence of so-called "decentralised finance" (DeFi) and a shadow financial system of cryptocurrency exchanges and stablecoin issuers raises the challenge of how to apply technology-neutral regulation so that similar risks are subject to the same rules. This paper makes the case for...

Financial sector development plays an important role in promoting economic growth and welfare of the citizen of a country. On the other hand, financial sector instability or vulnerability, can adversely affect the economic growth and cause major disruptions in the country. This paper examines...

We study how firms adjust their financial positions around the times when they undertake lumpy adjustments in capital or employment. Using U.S. firm level data, we document systematic patterns of cash and debt financing around lumpy adjustment, remarkably similar across capital and employment....

Using Credit Default Swap spreads, we construct a forward-looking, market-implied carbon risk factor and show that carbon risk affects firms' credit spread. The effect is larger for European than North American firms and varies substantially across industries, suggesting the market recognises...

This paper investigates the factors (such as different sources of financing, energy audits and internal monitoring activities) affecting the propensity of European small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to adopt energy efficiency measures (EEMs). For this purpose, a Probit model is estimated...

We introduce endogenous fire sales into a simple network model. For any given initial distribution of shocks across the network, we develop a clearing algorithm to solve for the financial equilibrium. We then utilise the results to perform ex ante risk assessment and derive risk premia for every...

We analyze the short and long-run performance of firms that were differentially affected by a new tax on dividends in the lead-up to the Global Financial Crisis. We use exogenous policy variation for firms with different legal statuses and financial year-end dates to causally identify the...

Because of secrecy, little is known about the political economy of central bank lending. Utilizing a novel, hand-collected historical daily dataset on loans to commercial banks, we analyze how personal connections matter for lending of last resort, highlighting the importance of governance for...