Consistent with precautionary savings models, we provide evidence that firms hoard cash in response to an exogenous credit shortage. For identification, we compare public U.S. firms in the same industry, location, and size quintile, but whose access to bank credit was differentially affected...

Gold is an important global reserve asset, widely held by the official sector and private investors. In this paper, we study a measure of the opportunity costs of holding gold, the gold lease rates -- interests paid in gold for borrowing gold. Gold lease rates are economically significant in...