This study examines the relationship between underwriter placement risk and market transaction prices using a sample of state general obligation bonds. We proxy underwriter placement risk using three variables: “when-issued” trades, underwriter syndicate size, and bond sale method....

Following the Global Settlement, analysts extensively use a top pick designation to highlight their highest conviction best ideas. Such a designation enables analysts to provide greater granularity of information, but it can potentially be influenced by conflicts of interest. Examining a...

I analyze welfare properties of mutual funds in the Diamond-Dybvig model with two sources of aggregate risk: undiversifiable interest rate risk and shocks to aggregate liquidity demand. Mutual funds are inefficient when the economy faces undiversifiable interest rate risk. However, if only...

How does sovereign risk affect investors' behavior? We answer this question using a novel database that combines sovereign default probabilities for 27 developed and emerging markets with monthly data on the portfolios of individual bond mutual funds. We first show that changes in yields do not...

This study analyzes the motives for and consequences of funds' credit default swap (CDS) investments using mutual funds' quarterly holdings from pre- to post-financial crisis. Funds resort to CDS investment when facing unpredictable liquidity needs. Funds sell more in reference entities where...

Following the 2008 financial crisis, regulation mandates the clearing of the CDS market through Central Clearing Counter-parties (CCPs). Large CCPs are now designated as 'Global Systemically Important Institutions' (GSIIs), whose unlikely-but-plausible failure threatens global financial market...

Recent regulation mandating the clearing of credit default swaps (CDS) by a Central Clearing Counterparties (CCP), has rendered the latter a systemically important institution, whose failure poses a serious threat to global financial stability. This work investigates the potential failure of a...

During the 15 years prior to the global financial crisis the volume of securitized assets transacted in the US grew substantially, reflecting a change in the nature of the financial intermediation process. Together with increased securitization of assets, financial entities, who participate more...

The objectives are to discern how the three financial sectors' CDS spreads interrelate to each other and with three other risks under the full sample and two subperiods: The 2007 Great Recession, and the 2009 recovery, and to assess the impact of QE1 on those risks in the second subperiod. The...

Using the vector autoregression (VAR) analysis, this study empirically documents the impulse response functions of financial stress and market risk premiums and performs a causality test of these two variables. The analysis of the monthly changes of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis...