Many college and university 403(b) plans restrict the menu of investment choices to funds offered by TIAA-CREF, the current manager of over half of all 403(b) contributions. Further, in the face of Internal Revenue Code changes that will take effect in 2006 and will make 403(b) plan ERISA...

Led by the growth of direct lending, private debt assets under management almost tripled over the past decade. What do we know about it and why has it grown? Using a proprietary dataset, we present new empirical facts about direct lending funds and investigate the demand and supply drivers that...

Many college and university 403(b) plans restrict the menu of investment choices to funds offered by TIAA-CREF, the current manager of over half of all 403(b) contributions. Further, in the face of Internal Revenue Code changes that will take effect in 2006 and will make 403(b) plan ERISA...

On July 31, 2017, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced it would no longer add companies with multiple share classes to its flagship S&P 500 index. This decision was designed to protect index fund investors against unequal voting rights structures, but it has already lowered investors’ returns and...

With the worldwide revolution in financial technology (“FinTech”), Peer-to-Peer (“P2P”) lending, an alternative funding channel, has grown rapidly over the past decade. P2P lending benefits digital financial inclusion by providing an online platform to facilitate direct trades between...

The US mortgage market is of paramount economic and financial importance. While the causes of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) remain a subject of vigorous debate, lax lending standards and opacity surrounding innovations in securitization are often cited as central issues. A decade following...

U.S. debt ceiling crises in 2011 and 2013 were marked by significant outflows from money market funds (MMFs). This study evaluates the behavior and motivations of investors redeeming from MMFs during these crises. We find that the majority of redemptions reflect a generalized flight-to-liquidity...

I study broker-dealers' trading activity in the US corporate bond market. I find evidence of broker-dealer market making when customers both buy and sell a bond in a day, which happens half of the time: as predicted by market making theories with adverse selection or inventory costs, prices go...

Like the United States, Denmark relies heavily on capital markets for funding residential mortgages, and its covered bond market bears a number of similarities to U.S. agency securitization. This article describes the key features of the Danish mortgage finance system and compares and contrasts...

Most corporate bond research on liquidity and dealer inventories is based on the USD-denominated bonds transactions in the US reported to TRACE. Some of these bonds, however, are also traded in Europe, and those trades are not subject to the TRACE reporting requirements. Leveraging our access to...