We show that compensation and other manager characteristics that attract public scrutiny in the banking industry only describe a small amount of the heterogeneity in the business models of banks. Instead, idiosyncratic manager effects that cannot be explained by observable manager...

This paper examines the dynamic allocation of control rights in private debt contracts of firms that repeatedly borrow in the syndicated loan market. We show that a covenant violation in the prior loan contract provides a signal to creditors which results in stricter contract terms for the...

Syndication increases the overlap of bank loan portfolios and makes them more vulnerable to contagious effects. We develop a novel measure of bank interconnectedness using syndicated corporate loan portfolios, overlap based on industry and region, and different weights such as equal weights,...

Banks distribute corporate debt by selling their reputation as underwriters to investors in debt markets. Nevertheless, a little explored area is the certification role of banks in placing their own bond debt. In particular, the bank-specific alternative choice of self-underwriting versus the...

This paper provides a critical survey of the large and diffuse literature on credit cards, debit cards and ATMs. We argue that because there are still many outstanding issues and questions about the pricing, use and substitutability of these payment mechanisms, that there are significant further...

This paper is the first in the literature to examine the determinants of US credit card penalty fees, which in 2004 amounted to $13 Billion, in a credit card market that had $800 Billion debt outstanding. Standard theory states that the price of debt should be related to default risk, yet many...

Does repeated borrowing from the same lender affect loan contract terms? We find that such borrowing translates into a 10 to 17 bps lowering of loan spreads. These results hold using multiple approaches (Propensity Score Matching, Instrumental Variables, and Treatment Effects Model) that control...

This paper examines the information content of the announcement of a sale of a borrower's loans by its lending bank. A large body of research has documented the positive impact on a firm's stock price around the announcement of initiating or renewing a lending relationship. In light of these...

Using highly detailed data on the loan portfolios of large U.S. banks, we document that these banks "specialize" by concentrating their lending disproportionately into one industry. This specialization improves a bank’s industry-specific knowledge and allows it to offer generous loan terms to...

We identify a group of lenders specializing in syndicating tradable loans (referred to as transactional lenders, “TLs”). We show that borrowers borrowing from TLs experience worse operating performance and more severe credit quality deterioration after loan origination compared to those...