We present a DSGE model where firms optimally choose among alternative instruments of external finance. The model is used to explain the evolving composition of corporate debt during the financial crisis of 2008-09, namely the observed shift from bank finance to bond finance, at a time when the...

We show that multinational firms transmit shocks across countries through their internal capital markets. We study a credit supply shock to parent firms in Germany. International affiliates outside Germany supported their parents through internal lending, became financially constrained...

We quantify the role of financial factors that have contributed to sluggish investment in Europe in the aftermath of the 2008-2009 crisis. Using a big data approach, we match the firms to their banks based on banking relationships in 8 European countries over time, obtaining over 2 million...

Existing models of contagious currency crises are summarized and surveyed, and it is argued that more weight should be put on political factors. Towards this end, the concept of political contagion introduced, whereby contagion in speculative attacks across currencies arises solely because of...

In this paper I analyze the nature of external adjustments in current account surplus countries. I ask whether a realignment of world growth rates -- with Japan and Europe growing faster, and the U.S. growing more slowly -- is likely to solve the current situation of global imbalances. The main...

We measure how securitized assets, including mortgage-backed securities and other asset-backed securities, have shifted across financial institutions over this crisis and how the availability of financing has accommodated such shifts. Sectors dependent on repo financing - in particular, the...

This paper establishes the existence of multiple equilibria in infinite-horizon open- economy models in which the value of tradable and nontradable endowments serves as collateral. In this environment, the economy displays self-fulfilling financial crises in which pessimistic views about the...

We argue that firms' balance sheets were instrumental in the propagation of shocks during the Great Recession. Using establishment-level data, we show that firms that tightened their debt capacity in the run-up to the Great Recession ("highleverage firms") exhibit a significantly larger decline...

We study the effects of credit shocks in a model with heterogeneous entrepreneurs, financing constraints, and a realistic firm size distribution. As entrepreneurial firms can grow only slowly and rely heavily on retained earnings to expand the size of their business in this set-up, we show that,...

Over the past two decades, banks have increasingly focused on offering contingent credit in the form of credit lines as a primary means of corporate borrowing. We review the existing body of research regarding the rationales for banks' provision of liquidity insurance in the form of credit...