We provide an extensive analysis of the payout policy of U.S. banks during the crisis to examine potential risk-shifting and signaling motives of banks. We estimate an empirical model of bank payouts to assess the extent to which changes in payouts are commensurate with worsening fundamentals....

This paper sheds new light on the role bank executives played in the financial crisis. It examines whether they foresaw the poor performance of their own bank by analyzing their insider trading patterns. Insider trading during 2006 predicts stock returns during the crisis: a portfolio strategy...