We show that constraints can improve financial decision-making by disciplining behavioral biases. In financial markets, restrictions on leverage limit traders' ability to borrow to open new positions. We demonstrate that regulation which restricts the provision of leverage to retail traders...

Social interaction contributes to some traders' disposition effect. New data from an investment-specific social network linked to individual-level trading records builds evidence of this connection. To credibly estimate causal peer effects, I exploit the staggered entry of retail brokerages into...

We document a robust dynamic inconsistency in risky choice. Using a unique brokerage dataset and a series of experiments, we compare people's initial risk-taking plans to their subsequent decisions. Across settings, people accept risk as part of a "loss-exit" strategy--planning to continue...

We study the effect of hedge fund activism on corporate environmental behaviors. Using plant-chemical level data from the EPA, we find that activism campaigns are associated with a 17 percent drop in emissions for chemicals at plants of targeted firms. Campaigns are associated with changes...

We study the determinants of value creation within U.S. commercial banks. We focus on three theoretically-motivated drivers of bank value: screening and monitoring, "safe" deposit production, and synergies between deposit-taking and lending. To assess the relative contributions of each, we...

We study the determinants of value creation in the cross section of U.S. commercial banks. We develop novel measures of individual bank's productivities at collecting deposits and making loans. We relate these measures to bank market values and find that variation in deposit productivity...

We document that the percentage of all U.S. assets that are “safe” has remained stable at about 33 percent since 1952. This stable ratio is a rare example of calm in a rapidly changing financial world. Over the same time period, the ratio of U.S. assets to GDP has increased by a factor of...