What determines risk-bearing capacity and the amount of leverage in financial markets? Using unique archival data on collateralized lending, we show that personal experience can affect individual risk-taking and aggregate leverage. When an investor syndicate speculating in Amsterdam in 1772 went...

Clearinghouses support financial trades by keeping records of transactions and by providing liquidity through short-term credit that is periodically cleared by participants. We study efficient clearing arrangements for formal exchanges, where traders must clear with a clearinghouse, and for...

Clearinghouses support financial trades by keeping records of transactions and by providing liquidity through short-term credit that is periodically cleared by participants. We study efficient clearing arrangements for formal exchanges, where traders must clear with a clearinghouse, and for...

This paper shows that politicians' pressure to climb the career ladder increases bank risk exposure in their region. Chinese local politicians are set growth targets in their region that are relative to each other. Growth is stimulated by debt-financed programs which are mainly financed via bank...

Although banks are at the center of systemic risk, there are other institutions that contribute to it. With the publication of the leveraged lending guideline in March 2013, the U.S. regulators show that they are especially worried about the private equity firms with their high-risk deals. Given...

In the mid-1990s, institutional investors entered the syndicated loan market and started to serve borrowers as lead arrangers. Why are non-banks able to compete for this role against banks? How do the composition of syndicates and loan pricing differ among lead arrangers? By using a dataset of...

This paper shows that politicians' pressure to climb the career ladder increases bank risk exposure in their region. Chinese local politicians are set growth targets in their region that are relative to each other. Growth is stimulated by debt-financed programs which are mainly financed via bank...

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of most Asian economies. The main obstacle to the development of the SME sector is the lack of stable finance. Considering the bank-dominated characteristic of economies in Asia, banks are the main source of financing, and the lack of a...

During the past decade non-bank institutional investors are increasingly taking larger roles in the corporate lending than they historically have played. These non-bank institutional lenders typically have higher required rates of return than banks, but invest in the same loan facilities. In a...

What determines risk-bearing capacity and the amount of leverage in financial markets? Using unique archival data on collateralized lending, we show that personal experience can affect individual risk-taking and aggregate leverage. When an investor syndicate speculating in Amsterdam in 1772 went...