Recent research has documented large differences among countries in ownership concentration in publicly trade firms, in the breadth and depth of capital markets, in dividend policies, and access of firms to external finance. A common element to the explanations of these differences is how well...

We present a standard model of financial innovation, in which intermediaries engineer securities with cash flows that investors seek, but modify two assumptions. First, investors (and possibly intermediaries) neglect certain unlikely risks. Second, investors demand securities with safe cash...

Fire sales are forced sales of assets in which high-valuation bidders are sidelined, typically due to debt overhang problems afflicting many specialist bidders simultaneously. We overview theoretical and empirical research on asset fire sales, which shows how they can arise, how they can lead to...

We present a model of shadow banking in which banks originate and trade loans, assemble them into diversified portfolios, and finance these portfolios externally with riskless debt. In this model: outside investor wealth drives the demand for riskless debt and indirectly for securitization, bank...