Are companies with traded credit default swap (CDS) positions on their debt more likely to default? Using a proportional hazard model of bankruptcy and Merton’s contingent claims approach, we estimate the probability of default for U.S. nonfinancial firms. Our analysis does not generally find...

This study investigates the valuation impact of a firm’s decision to cross-list on a more (or less) prestigious stock exchange relative to its own domestic market. We use network analysis to derive broad market-based measures of prestige for forty-five country or regional stock exchange...

In moral hazard models, bank shareholders have incentives to transfer wealth from the deposit insurer--that is, maximize put option value--by pursuing riskier strategies. For safe banks with large charter value, however, the risk-taking incentive is outweighed by the possibility of losing...

We investigate whether the “stress test,” the extraordinary examination of the nineteen largest U.S. bank holding companies conducted by federal bank supervisors in 2009, produced the information demanded by the market. Using standard event study techniques, we find that the market had...

A deterioration in the link between the M2 monetary aggregate and GDP, along with large errors in predicting M2 growth, led the Board of Governors to downgrade the M2 aggregate as a reliable indicator of monetary policy in 1993. In this paper, we argue that the financial condition of depository...

The optimal prepayment model asserts that rational homeowners would refinance if they can reduce the current value of their liabilities by an amount greater than the refinancing threshold, defined as the cost of carrying the transaction plus the time value of the embedded call option. To compute...

This paper looks at the role of both commercial and investment banks in providing merger advisory services. In this area, unlike some areas of investment banking, commercial banks have always been allowed to compete directly with investment banks. In their dual role as lenders and advisors to...

A large fraction of the companies that went private between 1990 and 2007 were fairly young public firms, often with the same management team making the crucial restructuring decisions both at the time of the initial public offering (IPO) and the buyout. Why did these public firms decide to...

In this paper, we use methods from social network analysis to assess the relative importance of financial centers around the world. Using data from virtually the entire universe of global equity activity, we present two sets of complete rankings for up to forty-five separate locations for the...