This paper explores whether refinancing risk is an important determinant of maturity decisions by investigating how firms with refinancing risk choose the maturity of new loans they obtain during the 2007-2009 financial crisis. The firms' refinancing risk is measured by the maturing portion of...

During the recent financial crisis, the Federal Reserve implemented a series of extraordinary and unconventional policies to alleviate the impact of the crisis on financial markets and the economy. In this paper, we examine the effects of these policies on broad financial market conditions,...

This paper offers a possible explanation for the conflicting empirical results in the literature concerning the relation between loan risk and collateral. Specifically, we posit that different economic characteristics or types of collateral pledges may be associated with the empirical dominance...

The literature has documented a positive relationship between the use of credit scoring for small business loans and small business credit availability, broadly defined. However, this literature is hampered by the fact that all of the studies are based on a single 1998 survey of the very largest...

We analyze the takeover premiums paid for a sample of European bank mergers between 1997 and 2007. We find that acquiring banks value profitable, high-growth, and low-risk targets. We also find that the strength of bank regulation and supervision and of deposit insurance regimes in Europe has...

An important theoretical literature motivates collateral as a mechanism that mitigates adverse selection, credit rationing, and other inefficiencies that arise when borrowers hold ex ante private information. There is no clear empirical evidence regarding the central implication of this...

Collateral is a widely used, but not well understood, debt-contracting feature. Two broad strands of theoretical literature explain collateral as arising from the existence of either ex ante private information or ex post incentive problems between borrowers and lenders. However, the extant...

This paper studies the impact of European bank mergers and acquisitions on changes in key safety and soundness measures of both acquirers and targets. We find that capitalization, profitability, and liquidity show signs of statistically and economically significant mean reversion for acquirers....

We describe and evaluate the measures taken by the U.S. government to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September 2008. We begin by outlining the business model of these two firms and their role in the U.S. housing finance system. Our focus then turns to the sources of financial distress that...