Individuals derive benefits from their connections, but these may, at the same time, transmit external threats. Individuals therefore invest in security to protect themselves. However, the incentives to invest in security depend on their network exposures. We study the problem of designing a...

In recent years the market for asset backed securities (ABS) has shown a rapid growth. In an ABS transaction assets are first pooled and then securities backed by this pool are issued. In many cases, several tranches of securities differing with respect to their priority of payment are designed....

Two factors have proven to be strongly relevant for the subprime mortgage crisis. The first is the lack of screening incentives of originators, which had not been anticipated by investors. The second is that investors relied too much on credit ratings. We examine whether investors have learned...

We use the tools of mechanism design, combined with the theory of risk measures, to analyze how a cash constrained owner of an asset with known stochastic returns raises capital from a population of investors that differ in their risk aversion and budget constraints. The issuer partitions the...

This paper develops a model where firms' equilibrium capital structures depend on firms' risk characteristics and investors' aggregate risk appetite. I assume that the law of one price fails because security markets are incomplete and risk-sharing through short-selling or borrowing is limited....

Firms have not historically called their convertible bonds as soon as they could force conversion. Various explanations for the delay rely on the size of the dividends that bondholders forgo so long as they do not convert. We investigate an important change in convertible security design, namely...

This paper empirically analyzes a particular type of notes observed in securitization transactions: combination notes. Combination notes are formed by combining parts of two or more tranches of securitization transactions, where one part usually consists of a share of the first loss piece. It is...

Die Arbeit untersucht die vertragliche Ausgestaltung von Kreditverkäufen, wenn zwischen dem Kreditverkäufer (Bank) und dem Kreditnehmer die Möglichkeit der Bildung einer zu Lasten des Kreditkäufers gehenden vertikalen Kollusion besteht. Die Bank übernimmt nach der Veräußerung des Kredits...

Shadow banking is a broad concept. A possible definition is that it comprises non-bank institutions which undertake bank-like activities. Another characteristic is that the sector is overall less regulated. Therefore there are still shortcomings in systematic collection of information of the sector.

We study optimal security design when the issuer and market participants agree to disagree about the characteristics of the asset to be securitized. We show that pooling assets can be optimal because it mitigates the effects of disagreement between issuer and investors, whereas tranching a...