Potential conflicts of interest arise when IPO underwriters allocate IPO shares to their affiliated funds. We hypothesize that such nepotism incentives affect IPO pricing. Using a novel hand-collected dataset, we find support for this hypothesis in a regression discontinuity design (RDD): a one...

We develop a framework for the strategic interaction between a hedge fund and a prime broker. The hedge fund optimally determines its cash holdings and the fraction of shorted securities. The prime broker optimally determines its cash holdings, the margin rates, and the rehypothecation rate. The...

This paper models the strategic interaction between a rating agency, a banking sector and a bank regulator who lacks information about bank asset risk. The regulator can either (1) make bank capital requirements contingent on credit ratings; or (2) set rating independent capital requirements....

This paper provides evidence on how the new international regulation on Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs) impacts the market value of large banks. We analyze the stock price reactions for the 300 largest banks from 52 countries across 12 relevant regulatory announcement and...

If regulation fails to differentiate between priced and idiosyncratic risk, it incentivizes investors to reach for yield. Studying securitization exposures on the balance sheets of German banks, I show evidence consistent with this prediction. Banks with tight regulatory constraints (low capital...

The effective functioning of the municipal bond market is crucial for the provision of public services, as it is the largest capital market for state and municipal issuers. Prior research has documented tax, credit, liquidity, and segmentation effects in municipal bonds. Recent regulatory...

This paper examines the quality of credit ratings assigned to banks in Europe and the United States by the three largest rating agencies over the past two decades. We interpret credit ratings as relative assessments of creditworthiness, and define a new ordinal metric of rating error based on...

We investigate regulatory arbitrage during the G20's global derivatives market reform. Using hand-collected data on staggered reform progress, we find that banks shift their trading towards less regulated jurisdictions. The result is driven by agenda items – such as the promotion of central...

We study how the introduction of a law protecting consumer data privacy affects the cost of credit in the US mortgage market. Our estimates reveal that the California Consumer Protection Act increases loan spreads charged by banks by 8 basis points but that it has no effect on the fixed...

We solve the problem of optimal securitization for an issuer facing heterogeneous investors with arbitrary time and risk preferences. We show that the optimal securitization is characterized by multiple nonlinear tranches, and each investor gets a portfolio of these tranches. In particular, when...