Two hypotheses concerning firms issuing debt for the first time are tested. The first is that new firms' debt will be discounted more heavily by lenders, compared to firms which have credit histories (but are otherwise identical), and that this excess discount declines over time as lenders...

Central banking is intimately related to liquidity provision to banks during times of crisis, the lender-of-last-resort function. This activity arose endogenously in certain banking systems. Depositors lack full information about the value of bank assets so that during macroeconomic downturns...