Because uncertainty is high in bad times, investors find it harder to assess firm prospects and, hence, should value analyst output more. However, higher uncertainty makes analysts' tasks harder so it is unclear if analyst output is more valuable in bad times. We find that, in bad times, analyst...

Top sportsmen often refer to competition against other top sportsmen as a motivation to exert more effort. We examine whether a similar pattern exists among another group of top professionals – star analysts. Our evidence suggests that star analysts concentrate their efforts and generate...

The issues regarding catastrophic losses is quite an important factor to consider in the course of insurance and the issuance of CAT bonds. This not withstanding the issue of cost of capital is quite undeniable should an assessment of this magnitude be done. Researchers have indicated that...

We examine whether the local press is an effective governance mechanism for monitoring and inhibiting financial adviser misconduct. Using local newspaper closure as a negative shock to the local press, we find that financial advisers who are located in counties with newspaper closures are more...

Rajan and Zingales (1998) use U.S. Compustat firm data for the 1980s to obtain measures of manufacturing sectors? Dependence on External Finance (DEF). They take any differences in these measures to be structural/technological and thus applicable to other countries. Their joint assumptions about...

The finding that industrial sectors differ in their dependence on external finance for sector-specific technological reasons and, thus, rely to a different degree on financial development has become a major concept in studies conducted on both growth and trade. Although natural resources might...

The finding that industrial sectors differ in their dependence on external finance for sector-specific technological reasons and, thus, rely to a different degree on financial development has become a major concept in studies conducted on both growth and trade. Although natural resources might...

This paper studies the role of banks' branching networks in propagating the oil shocks. Banks that were exposed to the oil shocks through their operations in oil-concentrated counties experienced a liquidity drainage in the form of a declining amount of demand deposit inflow as well as an...

The global economy is in the midst of an unprecedented slump caused by the coronavirus pandemic. This systemic risk like no other at a time of record-breaking debt levels, especially among nonfinancial firms across the world, could exacerbate corporate vulnerabilities, deepen macro-financial...