Can peer-to-peer lending (P2P) crowdfunding disintermediate and mitigate information frictions in lending such that choices and outcomes for at least some borrowers and investors are improved? I offer a framing of issues and survey the nascent literature on P2P. On the investor side, P2P...

Using state-level variation over time in the top deciles of the income distribution, we observe that non-rich households consume a larger share of their current income when exposed to a higher top income and consumption levels. We argue that permanent income, wealth effects, and upward local...

More patriotic countries have greater home bias in their equity selection. In a panel of World Values Surveys covering 53 countries, measures of patriotism are positively related to home bias measures after controlling for transaction barriers, diversification benefits, information, and...

To identify the most effective mechanisms for detecting corporate fraud, we study all reported fraud cases in large U.S. companies between 1996 and 2004. We find that fraud detection does not rely on standard corporate governance actors (investors, SEC, and auditors), but rather takes a village,...

Does access to high-interest credit (payday loans) exacerbate or mitigate individual financial distress. Using natural disasters as an exogenous shock, I apply a propensity score-matched, triple-difference specification to identify a causal relation between welfare and access to credit....

Wan (2013) argues that the statistical inferences in our Journal of Finance (2011) paper are not robust, as we do not prove that it is powerful CEOs that rig incentive contracts. Wan makes the theoretical claim that the rigging results are consistent with ex-post optimal re-contracting. However,...

Have rising income and consumption at the top of income distribution since the early 1980s induced households in the lower tiers of the distribution to consume a larger share of their income? Using state-year variation in income level and consumption in the top first quintile or decile of the...

Adair Morse turns to the social sciences and analyzes how research productivity in top economics and finance programs has changed over time. She finds that the advantage of elite universities is declining and argues this is because new communications technologies have eroded the benefits of...