The Freedman's Savings Bank (1865-1874) was Congressionally-approved to meet the credit needs for the emerging African American community. Preceding and then after Freedman, the post-bellum financial infrastructure was built reflecting a national banking system (1863), the Central Bank (Federal...

Firm cash holdings increased substantially from 1980 to 2017. We study the implications of the increase in firm cash holdings on monetary policy. We introduce a model that takes the distribution of firm cash holdings as an input. We find that the interest rate channel of the transmission of...

We show that firms' nominal required returns to capital (i.e., their discount rates) are sticky with respect to expected inflation. Such nominally sticky discount rates imply that increases in expected inflation directly lower firms' real discount rates and thereby raise real investment. We...

Using an event study methodology, this paper examines how European firms have been affected by the announcement of the European Central Bank's Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program (PEPP). Firms with an investment grade rating benefit relatively more, as evidenced by higher share prices and lower...

The recovery in private business investment globally remains extremely weak more than seven years after the financial crisis. This paper contributes to the ongoing policy debate on the factors behind this weakness by analyzing the role of growth prospects and uncertainty in explaining...