Business credit lags GDP growth by about one year. This contributes to high leverage during recessions and slow deleveraging. We show that a model in which firms use risky long-term debt replicates this slow adjustment of firm debt. In the model, slow-moving debt has important effects for real...

This paper studies a model of endogenous bank opacity. Why do banks choose to hide their risk exposure from the public? And should policy makers force banks to be more transparent? In the model, bank opacity is costly because it encourages banks to take on too much risk. But opacity also reduces...