This paper examines banks' disclosures and loss recognition in the financial crisis and identifies several core issues for the link between accounting and financial stability. Our analysis suggests that, going into the financial crisis, banks' disclosures about relevant risk exposures were...

I develop an algorithm to approximate the loss rate distribution for fixed income portfolios with obligor concentrations. The approximation requires no advanced mathematics or statistics, only the summation of large exposures and the evaluation of binomial probabilities. The approximation is...

In this paper, we introduce a model to study the interaction between insurance and banking. We build on the Federal Crop Insurance Act of 1980, which significantly expanded and restructured the decades-old federal crop insurance program and adverse weather shocks - over-exposure of crops to heat...

In this paper, we show the benefits of bank asset diversification for the economy. A more diversified stream of earnings enables banks to better absorb negative shocks, leading to increased and more stable lending. This, in turn, provides positive spillovers to the economy. We demonstrate that...

Nonbank lenders have been playing an increasing role in supplying debt, especially after the Great Recession. How important are the distortions in the greater regulation of banks that differentially limit risk-taking across alternative providers of credit? How might the growing role of nonbanks...

The traditional model of bank-led financial intermediation, where banks issue demandable deposits to savers and make informationally sensitive loans to borrowers, has seen a dramatic decline since 1970s. Instead, private credit is increasingly intermediated through arms-length transactions, such...

Productive firms can access credit markets directly by issuing corporate bonds or by borrowing through financial intermediaries. In this paper, we study the cyclical properties of corporate credit provision through these two types of debt instruments in major advanced economies. We argue that...

Productive firms can access credit markets directly by issuing corporate bonds or by borrowing through financial intermediaries. In this paper, we study the cyclical properties of corporate credit provision through these two types of debt instruments in major advanced economies. We argue that...

Using data on balance sheets of both financial and nonfinancial sectors of the economy, we use a "demand system" approach to study how lender composition and willingness to provide credit affect the relationship between credit expansions and real activity. A key advantage of jointly modeling the...

This paper empirically examines the role of soft information in the competitive interaction between relationship and transaction banks. Soft information can be interpreted as a private signal about the quality of a firm that is observable to a relationship bank, but not to a transaction bank. We...