The massive losses that banks incurred with the meltdown of the subprime mortgage market have raised concerns about their ability to continue lending to corporations. We investigate these concerns. We find that firms paid higher loan spreads during the subprime crisis. Importantly, the increase...

This paper investigates whether it is costly for nonfinancial firms to enter the public bond market, and whether firms benefit from their bond IPOs. We find that both gross spreads and ex ante credit spreads are higher for IPO bonds, suggesting that firms pay higher underwriting costs on their...

Theory suggests that banks' private information about borrowers lets them hold up borrowers for higher interest rates. Since hold-up power increases with borrower risk, banks with exploitable information should be able to raise their rates in recessions by more than is justified by borrower risk...

It has long been recognized that banks' simultaneous provision of monitoring and liquidity services is advantageous but leaves them susceptible to liquidity shocks that may culminate in a system failure. Because a system failure is costly, this provides a rationale for adopting arrangements,...

This paper reviews the theoretical literature on bank capital regulation and analyses some of the approaches to redesigning the 1988 Basle Accord on capital standards. The paper starts with a review of the literature on the design of the financial system and the existence of banks. It proceeds...

In an investigation of banks’ loan pricing policies in the United States over the past two decades, this study finds supporting evidence for the bank risk-taking channel of monetary policy. We show that banks charge lower spreads when they lend to riskier borrowers relative to the spreads they...