The purpose of this paper is to address two issues. It defines the appropriate role played by institutions in the financial sector and focuses on the role of risk management in firms that use their own balance sheets to provide financial products. A key objective is to explain when risks are...

This paper examines the role played by derivatives in determining the interest rate sensitivity of bank holding companies' (BHCs') common stock, controlling for the influence of on-balance sheet activities and other bank-specific characteristics. The major result of the analysis suggests that...

Property-liability insurance is distributed by two different types of firms, those that distribute their product through independent agents, who represent more than one insurer,and direct writing insurers that distribute insurance through exclusive agents, who represent only one insurer. This...

Catastrophic events such as hurricane and earthquakes are the dominant source of risk for many property casualty insurers. Primary insurers usually limit the scale and geographic scope of their operations in order to focus on core competencies such as marketing, underwriting and loss control....

This paper examines the role of relationship lending using a data set on small firm finance. The abilities to acquire private information over time about borrower quality and to use this information in designing debt contracts largely define the unique nature of commercial banking. Recently, a...

A complex financial system comprises both financial markets and financial intermediaries. We distinguish financial intermediaries according to whether they issue complete contingent contracts or incomplete contracts. Intermediaries such as banks that issue incomplete contracts, e.g., demand...

Despite the scholarly interest in joint ventures and strategic alliances, the consortium bank movement represents an under-researched phase in post-war banking history. From 1964 to the mid-1980s, many of the largest banks in the world, including the Nordic banks, entered into international...

Growing competition, convergence of the loan and capital markets, and the greater complexity of commercial loan structure have heightened the need for banks to manage their loan portfolios in a more sophisticated way. This is true for the management of individual transactions and for the loan...

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the capacity of the U.S. property-liability insurance industry to finance major catastrophic property losses. The topic is important because catastrophic events such as the Northridge earthquake and Hurricane Andrew have raised...

Traditionally, concerns about market concentration have focused on mispricing and the restriction of output relative to competitive markets. This type of loss is typically measured by the standard welfare triangle. The associated welfare losses usually motivate antitrust policy.<p> <p> This paper...</p></p>