Policy makers and market participants alike wish to understand the amount, economic significance, and concentration of derivatives trading activity. This paper suggests that systematic measuring and reporting of margin by market participants, disaggregated by asset class, would provide more...

The near-failure on September 16, 2008, of American International Group (AIG) was an iconic moment in the financial crisis. Two large bets on real estate made with funding that was vulnerable to bank-run like behavior on the part of funders pushed AIG to the brink of bankruptcy. AIG used...

It is well-documented that stock prices rise significantly prior to an equity issue, and fall upon announcement of the issue. We expand on earlier studies by using a large sample which includes OTC firms, by examining the cross-sectional properties of the price rise, and by using accounting data...

The most widely accepted empirical dividend model is that proposed by Lintner, who argued that firms smooth dividends over time. Many theoretical dividend models, however, either predict that dividends should be highly variable, or at least offer no support for the smoothing hypothesis. We use a...

Banks know more about the quality of their assets than do outside investors. This informational asymmetry can distort investment decisions if the bank must raise funds from uninformed outsiders, and assets sold will be subject to a lemons discount. Using a three-period equilibrium model we...

This paper uses an option valuation model of the firm to answer the question, "What magnitude tax advantage to debt is consistent with the range of observed corporate debt ratios?" We incorporate into the model differential personal tax rates on capital gains and ordinary income. We conclude...

This paper applies the Capital Asset Pricing Model to help explain the anomalous behavior of real interest rates during the last several years. Specifically,we are able to show that the increased volatility of bond prices since the change in Federal Reserve operating procedure in October 1979...

This paper models bank asset choice when shareholders know more about loan quality than do outsiders. Because of this informational asymmetry, the price of loans in the secondary market is the price for poor quality loans. Banks desire to hold marketable securities in order to avoid liquidating...

This paper presents an information-theoretic, infinite horizon model of the equity issue decision. The model's predictions about stock price behavior and issue timing explain most of the stylized facts in the empirical literature: (a) equity issues on average are preceded by an abnormal positive...

This paper explores both theoretically and enirically the role of nominalbonds of various maturities in investor portfolios in the U.S. One of its principal goals is to determine whether an investor who is constrained to limithis investment in bonds to a single portfolio of money-fixed debt...