Traditionally banks have used securitization for expanding credit and thus their profitability. It has been well documented that, at least before the 2008 crisis, many banks were keeping a high proportion of the securities that they created on their own balance-sheets. Those securities retained...

We study the formation of networks in environments where agents derive benefits from other agents directly linked to them but suffer losses through contagion when any agent on a path connected to them is hit by a shock. We first consider networks with undirected links (e.g. epidemics,...

A common practice of banks has been to pool assets of different qualities and then sell a fraction of the newly created portfolios to investors. We extend the signaling model for single sales of risky assets to portfolio sales. We identify conditions under which signaling at the portfolio level...

This paper provides a unified framework for endogenizing two distinct organizational structures of financial intermediation. In one structure, called Bank, the intermediary is financed by issuing debt contracts to investors, and thus resembles commercial banks. In the other structure, called...

In the financial economics literature debt contracts provide efficient solutions for addressing managerial moral hazard problems. We analyze a model with multiple projects where the manager obtains private information about their quality after the contract with investors is agreed. The...

Countries differ on the extent to which their financial system relies on banks or on the financial market. We offer a model featuring a possible two way relationship between countries' financial system architecture and their comparative advantage. Countries specialising in bank dependent sectors...

We develop a small, open economy, two-sector model with heterogeneous agents and endogenous participation in a labor matching market. We analyze the implications of asymmetric market entry costs for the patterns of international trade and underemployment. Furthermore, we examine the welfare...

We consider the optimal education policies of a small economy whose government has a limited budget. Initially, the economy is closed and the government chooses its education policy to maximize welfare under autarky. Then the economy trades with the rest of the world. Lastly, the government...

We develop a two-country, two-sector model with a continuum of workers to address the link between migration and trade where policy is determined by a simple referendum. In particular, we address two questions. First, are states already in free trade areas more likely to support full integration...

We introduce financial frictions in a two sector model of international trade with heterogeneous agents. The level of specialization in the economy (economic development) depends on the quality of financial institutions. Underdeveloped financial markets prohibit an economy to specialize in...