Fraud and irrationality are often blamed for financial manias and panics. Investor euphoria can unleash social and technological breakthroughs, but the subsequent failures can destroy value and radicalize the political sphere. Are these events random, idiosyncratic, or driven by some force? The...

I use the global crisis of 1914 as a window onto the phenomenon of investor reaction to complex news — such as sudden political upheaval. Based on a novel database of all stocks traded on the NYSE during 1914, along with “real-time” news accounts from major newspapers, I show that NYSE...

Using new quarterly U.S. data for the past 120 years, I show that sudden reversals in equity and credit market sentiment approximated by several measures of corporate securities issuance are highly predictive of banking crises and recessions. Deviations in equity issuance from historical...

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...

This paper investigates what we can learn from the financial crisis about the link between accounting and financial stability. The picture that emerges ten years after the crisis is substantially different from the picture that dominated the accounting debate during and shortly after the crisis....

Some jurisdictions weathered the global financial crisis far better than others. Australia has attracted much attention in view of the fact that its economy performed particularly well during the crisis compared to the United Kingdom and the United States.The chapter explores why the Australia...

In the two decades leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, numerous significant changes in federal law greatly reduced transactions costs in financial markets and made possible new types of trading in new types of financial instruments. The driving policy assumption behind these and similar...

This study examines how interfirm heterogeneities in modes of technology acquisition and technology intensities are linked to firm ownership in India using a panel data set of about 2,000 firms listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange for the period 2003–2014 drawn from the Prowess database of the...

Is coronavirus accelerating the future? Will the crisis provide a tipping point that encourages corporations to promote socially desirable values? Will there be a wider recognition that a sole focus on profits and investors hurts both companies and society? Or, will we simply return to...

When contemplating Chapter 11, firms often need to seek financing for their continuing operations in bankruptcy. Because such financing would otherwise be hard to find, the Bankruptcy Code authorizes debtors to offer sweeteners to debtor-in-possession (DIP) lenders. These inducements can be...