We measure aggregate productivity loss due to credit market constraints in a model with endogenous borrowing constraints, long-duration bonds, and costly equity payouts. Due to long-duration bonds, the model generates a realistic distribution of credit spreads. We structurally estimate our model...

This paper quantifies the impact of capital misallocation on the loss in total factor productivity (TFP), arising from financial frictions. A two-period model is built to map the dispersion in the cross-sectional borrowing costs into the TFP loss. Equity cost of capital, which closely relates to...

We study the relation between the centralization of regulated financial information, information asymmetry, and capital market liquidity. Specifically, we exploit the staggered implementation of digital storage and access facilities (called Officially Appointed Mechanisms, or OAMs) for regulated...

In recent years, financial regulators have come under increasing judicial scrutiny for conducting inadequate cost/benefit assessments in advance of significant reforms. One facet of this scrutiny is judicial skepticism towards the proper role for regulatory experimentation (and the real option...

This Essay discusses two historical parallels between the current financial crisis and the financial crisis of the late 1920s and 1930s. First, financial innovation was at the core of both crises. In particular, the machinations of Ivar Kreuger illuminate how financial innovation tends to...