Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and private-label mortgage-backed securities (MBS) backed by nonprime loans played a central role in the recent financial crisis. Little is known, however, about the underlying forces that drove investor demand for these securitizations. Using micro-data on...

When borrowers are delinquent, senior debtholders prefer liquidation whereas junior debtholders prefer to maintain their option value by delaying resolution or modifying the loan. In the mortgage market, a conflict of interest (“holdup”) arises when servicers of securitized senior liens are...

Using medians, U.S. firms do not hold more cash than similar foreign firms, irrespective of whether the foreign firms come from countries with good investor protection or not. With means, they do. The means, in contrast to the medians, are affected by U.S. multinationals. U.S. multinationals...