In the last several years, many employers have decided to automatically enroll their new employees in the company 401(k) plan. Using several years of administrative data from three large firms, we analyze the impact of automatic enrollment on 401(k) participation rates, savings behavior, and...

When it filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2008, Lehman Brothers was an active participant in the derivatives market and was party to 906,000 derivative transactions of all types under 6,120 ISDA Master Agreements with an estimated notional value of $35 trillion. The majority of...

Anton R. Valukas, the Lehman Brothers court-appointed bankruptcy examiner, produced a 2,200-page report detailing possible claims that the estate might pursue, and he identified several, from company officers to its independent auditors. The most startling revelation of the report, however, was...

When Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, it was the largest such filing in U.S. history and a huge shock to the world's financial markets, which were already stressed from the deflated housing bubble and questions about subprime mortgages. Lehman was the fourth-largest...

When Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. (LBHI) sought Chapter 11 protection, the more than 6,000 counterparties with which its subsidiaries had entered into over 900,000 over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives transactions faced the question of how best to respond to protect their interests. The...

Lehman's U.S. broker-dealer, Lehman Brothers Inc. (LBI), was excluded from the parent company's bankruptcy filing on September 15, 2008, because it was thought that the solvent subsidiary might be able to wind down its affairs in a normal fashion. However, the force of the parent's demise proved...

For many years prior to its demise, Lehman Brothers employed Ernst & Young (EY) as the firm's independent auditors to review its financial statements and express an opinion as to whether they fairly represented the company's financial position. EY was supposed to try to detect fraud, determine...