I build a model where creditworthy countries may use fiscal austerity to communicate their ability to repay sovereign debt and show that the signaling channel is active only for high levels of asymmetric information. The model generates a negative association between the amount of public...

This paper provides evidence for regulatory arbitrage within the class of assetbacked securities (ABS) based on individual asset holding data of German banks. I find that those banks operating with tight regulatory constraints pick the securities with the highest yield and lowest collateral...