We present 12 facts about the mortgage crisis. We argue that the facts refute the popular story that the crisis resulted from finance industry insiders deceiving uninformed mortgage borrowers and investors. Instead, we argue that borrowers and investors made decisions that were rational and...

What determines risk-bearing capacity and the amount of leverage in financial markets? Using unique archival data on collateralized lending, we show that personal experience can affect individual risk-taking and aggregate leverage. When an investor syndicate speculating in Amsterdam in 1772 went...

Following the definition of systemic risk by the Financial Stability Board, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements, this paper proposes a method able to simultaneously address the two dimensions in which this risk materializes: namely the cross-sectional and...

Euroland is in a crisis that is slowly but surely spreading from one periphery country to another; it will eventually reach the center. The blame is mostly heaped upon supposedly profligate consumption by Mediterraneans. But that surely cannot apply to Ireland and Iceland. In both cases, these...

We classify a large sample of banks according to the geographic diversification of their international syndicated loan portfolio. Our results show that diversified banks maintain higher loan supply during banking crises in borrower countries. The positive loan supply effects lead to higher...

This paper surveys the literature on the linkages between asset prices and macroeconomic outcomes. It focuses on three major questions. First, what are the basic theoretical linkages between asset prices and macroeconomic outcomes? Second, what is the empirical evidence supporting these...

This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on the macroeconomic implications of financial imperfections. It focuses on two major channels through which financial imperfections can affect macroeconomic outcomes. The first channel, which operates through the demand side of finance...

I provide a framework for understanding debt deleveraging in a group of _nancially integrated countries. During an episode of international deleveraging world consumption demand is depressed and the world interest rate is low, reecting a high propensity to save. If exchange rates are allowed to...

Using the longest data set on FX order flow to date, along with the broadest coverage of currencies to date, we examine the effect of FX order flow on exchange rates across small and large currencies, currencies with floating or fixed regimes, and across both tranquil and turbulent periods. Over...

This paper presents a new hierarchical methodology for estimating multi factor dynamic asset pricing models. The approach is loosely based on the sequential approach of Fama and MacBeth (1973). However, the hierarchical method uses very flexible bandwidth selection methods in kernel weighted...