We show that Quantitative Easing (QE) stimulates investment via a corporate-bond lending channel. Fed's large-scale asset purchases of MBS and treasuries through QE creates a vacuum of safe assets, prompting safer firms to invest more by issuing relatively "safe'' bonds. Using micro-data around...

We study how risk management through hedging impacts firms and competition among firms in the life insurance industry - an industry with over 7 Trillion in assets and over 1,000 private and public firms. We show that firms that are likely to face costly external finance increase hedging after...