We analyze linked databases on all Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, on all SBA lenders, and on all U.S. employers to estimate the effects of financial access on employment growth. Our methods combine regressions with matching on firm age, size, industry, year, and employment history,...

There are many positive aspects associated with subnational borrowing, including additional funding and promoting intergenerational equity. However, it may also endanger fiscal sustainability and macro stability due to moral hazard and soft budget constraints, making borrowing controls justified...

Analyzing a list of all Small Business Administration (SBA) loans in 1991 to 2009 linked with annual information on all U.S. employers from 1976 to 2012, we apply detailed matching and regression methods to estimate the variation in SBA loan effects on job creation and firm survival across firm...

We use hand-collected data to investigate the COVID-19 bailouts for all publicly listed US firms. The median tax rate is 4% for bailout firms and 16% for no-bailout firms. The bailouts are expensive when compared to past corporate income tax payments of the bailout firms. We compute the number...

We document that nearly half of US public firms were eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in 2020, with 41.8% of those eligible choosing to borrow. Consistent with the program's objectives, borrowers tended to be smaller with less cash, higher leverage, and fewer investment...

In this paper, we argue that bank-sponsored prime institutional money market funds (PI-MMFs) are different from non-bank-sponsored PI-MMFs. This difference can arise because the sponsoring bank holding companies (BHCs) can extend shadow insurance to ailing affiliated MMFs. We hypothesize that...

Firms' inability to commit to future funding choices has profound consequences for capital structure dynamics. With debt in place, shareholders pervasively resist leverage reductions no matter how much such reductions may enhance firm value. Shareholders would instead choose to increase leverage...

In this paper, we construct a structural model to determine the costs of a bank rescue considering bail-outs and bail-ins. In our model, a government assumes the equity stake under unlimited liability upon abandonment of the original equity holders. The model determines an abandonment trigger...

We conduct a survey-based experiment with 2,776 students at a non-profit university to analyze income insurance demand in education financing. We offered students a hypothetical choice: either a federal loan with income-driven repayment or an income-share agreement (ISA), with randomized framing...

At a time when the returns to college and graduate school are at historic highs, why do so many students struggle with their student loans? The increase in aggregate student debt and the struggles of today's student loan borrowers can be traced to changes in federal policies intended to broaden...