Recent academic work and policy analysis give insight into the governance problems exposed by the financial crisis and suggest possible solutions. We begin this paper by explaining why governance of banks differs from governance of non-financial firms. We then look at four areas of governance:...

We explore the capital structure and governance of a mortgage-insuring securitization utility operating with government reinsurance for systemic or “tail” risk. The structure we propose for the replacement of the GSEs focuses on aligning incentives for appropriate pricing and transfer of...

We identify and track over time the factors that make the financial system vulnerable to fire sales by constructing an index of aggregate vulnerability. The index starts increasing quickly in 2004, before most other major systemic risk measures, and triples by 2008. The fire-sale-specific...

This paper studies the link between firm-level financial constraints and employment decisions, as well as the implications for the propagation of aggregate shocks. I exploit the idea that, when the financial constraint binds, a firm adjusts its employment in response to cash flow shocks. I...

Why does the market discipline that banks face seem too weak during good times and too strong during bad times? Using a global games approach in a general equilibrium setting, this paper shows that rollover risk as a disciplining device is effective only if all banks face purely idiosyncratic...

Can the macroeconomic effects of credit supply shocks be large even when a small share of firms are credit-constrained? I use U.K. firm-level accounting data to discipline a heterogeneous-firm model in which the interaction between real and financial frictions induces precautionary cash...

We study market reactions to seasoned equity issuances that were announced by financial companies between 2002 and 2013. To assess the risk and valuation implications of these seasoned equity issuances, we conduct an event analysis using daily credit default swap (CDS) and stock market pricing...

We identify the tension created by the dual demands of financial institutions to be value-maximizing entities that also serve the public interest. We highlight the importance of information in addressing the public's desire for banks to be safe yet innovative. Regulators can choose several...

I take a new approach to measuring world inequality and welfare over time by constructing robust bounds for these series instead of imposing parametric assumptions to compute point estimates. I derive sharp bounds on the Atkinson inequality index that are valid for any underlying distribution of...

This paper develops a technique to decompose price distributions into contributions from markups and marginal cost. The estimators are then used as a laboratory to measure the relationship between increasing Chinese competition and the components of U.S. import prices. The estimates suggest that...