We design a new, implementable capital requirement for large financial institutions (LFIs) that are too big to fail. Our mechanism mimics the operation of margin accounts. To ensure that LFIs do not default on either their deposits or their derivative contracts, we require that they maintain a...

We calculate the costs and benefits of the largest ever U.S. Government intervention in the financial sector announced the 2008 Columbus-day weekend. We estimate that this intervention increased the value of banks' financial claims by $131 billion at a taxpayers' cost of $25 -$47 billions with a...

We calculate the costs and benefits of the largest ever U.S. Government intervention in the financial sector announced the 2008 Columbus-day weekend. We estimate that this intervention increased the value of banks’ financial claims by $131 billion at a taxpayers’cost of $25 -$47 billions...

Several papers study the effect of trust by using the answer to the World Values Survey (WVS) question quot;Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can't be too careful in dealing with people?quot; to measure the level of trust. Glaeser et al. (2000)...

We study the effect of media coverage on corporate governance by focusing on Russia in the period 1999-2002. This setting offers us three ideal conditions for such a study: plenty of corporate governance violations, no alternative mechanisms to address them, and the presence of an investment...

In this paper we discuss the role of the media in pressuring corporate managers and directors to behave in ways that are quot;socially acceptablequot;. Sometimes this coincides with shareholders' value maximization, others not. We provide both anecdotal and systematic evidence that media affect...

We study the effects of differences in local financial development within an integrated financial market. We construct a new indicator of financial development by estimating a regional effect on the probability that, ceteris paribus, a household is shut off from the credit market. By using this...

What determines the boundaries of a firm? Is a firm defined solely by the ownership of physical assets as suggested by the property rights theory? This paper presents a theory of the firm based on the well-known idea that the firm improves over the market because it uses ex ante mechanisms to...

In this paper we examine data on firm size from Europe to shed light on factors correlated with firm size. In addition to studying broad patterns, we use the data to ask whether it is sufficient to think of the firm as a black box as some theories of the firm that we label...

There are many instances where two closely related parties do not agree to mutually advantageous transactions even when there are simple enforceable contracts, and side transfers of fungible resources, that would implement them. Peace treaties are not signed, inefficient regulations are not...