This paper provides a descriptive and quantitative account of the tri-party repo market before the reforms proposed in 2010 by the Task Force on Tri-Party Repo Infrastructure (Task Force 2010). We provide an extensive description of the mechanics of this market. We also use data from July 2008...

A fundamental conclusion drawn from the recent financial crisis is that the supervision and regulation of financial firms in isolation--a purely microprudential perspective--are not sufficient to maintain financial stability. Rather, a macroprudential perspective, which evaluates and responds to...

Empirical studies show that competition in the credit markets has important effects on the entry and growth of firms in nonfinancial industries. This paper explores the hypothesis that the availability of credit at the time of a firm's founding has a profound effect on that firm's nature. I...

In 2002, the Securities and Exchange Commission mandated that the chief executive officers of large, publicly traded firms certify the accuracy of their company financial statements. In this paper, I investigate whether CEO certification has had a measurable effect on the stock market valuation...

We argue that the 2005 bankruptcy abuse reform (BAR) contributed to the surge in subprime foreclosures that followed its passage. Before BAR, distressed mortgagors could free up income by filing bankruptcy and having their unsecured debts discharged. BAR blocks that maneuver for better-off...

This paper shows that bank performance improves significantly after restrictions on bank expansion are lifted. We find that operating costs and loan losses decrease sharply after states permit statewide branching and, to a lesser extent, after states allow interstate banking. The improvements...

Payday loans are widely condemned as a “predatory debt trap.” We test that claim by researching how households in Georgia and North Carolina have fared since those states banned payday loans in May 2004 and December 2005. Compared with households in all other states, households in Georgia...

We construct a model in which bank capital regulation and financial innovation interact. Innovation takes the form of pooling and tranching of assets and the creation of separate structures with different seniority, different risk, and different capital charges, a process that captures some...

Subprime mortgage lending expanded in New York City between 2004 and mid-2007, and delinquencies on these subprime loans have been rising sharply. We use a rich, loan-level data set of the city's outstanding subprime loans as of January 2009 to describe the main features of this lending and to...

Thousands of U.S. households filed for bankruptcy just before the bankruptcy law changed in 2005. That rush-to-file was more pronounced, we find, in states with more generous bankruptcy exemptions and lower credit scores. We take that finding as evidence that the new law effectively reduces...