This paper examines the evolution of risk in the U.S. financial sector using firm-level equity market data from 1975 to 2005. Over this period, financial sector volatility has steadily increased, reaching extraordinary levels from 1998 to 2002. Much of this recent turbulence can be attributed to...

We investigate the use of machine learning (ML) and other robust-estimation techniques in event studies conducted on single securities for the purpose of securities litigation. Single-firm event studies are widely used in civil litigation, with billions of dollars in settlements hinging on the...

I have divided this testimony into four sections, which discuss: (1) several types of automation currently being deployed in capital markets and the financial sector, and how they affect decision-making; (2) how machine learning (ML) and automation can help and hurt workers by disruption of the...

The equity and debt prices of large nonbank firms contain information about the future state of the banking system. In this sense, banks are informationally central. The amount of this information varies over time and over equity and debt. During a financial crisis banks are, by definition of a...

Motivated by the recent National Association of Realtors (NAR) settlement, this note examines the effects of reduced real estate agent commissions on home prices, housing turnover, and consumer welfare. Using a calibrated dynamic structural search model of the housing market, we explore how...

The most important financial source for behavioral economics is the Russell Sage Foundation (RSF). The most prominent behavioral economists among the RSF’s twenty-six member Behavioral Economics Roundtable (BER) are Kahneman, Tversky, Thaler, Camerer, Loewenstein, Rabin, and Laibson. The...

In a less widely known contribution, Béla Martos (1966, Hungarian Academy of Sciences) introduced a generalized notion of concavity that is closely related to what is nowadays known as r-concavity in the operations research literature, and that is identical to what is nowadays known as...

This paper examines mandatory occupational licensure in several professions from barbers, cosmetologists, radiologic technicians, CPAs, mid-level healthcare providers, and physicians. Mandatory licensure is cited as a mechanism for serving the public interest by assuring professionals possess...

In the U.S. Senate, roll calls are held in alphabetical order. We document that senators early in the order are less likely to vote with the majority of their own party than those whose last name places them at the end of the alphabet. To speak to the mechanism behind this result, we develop a...

In the U.S. Senate, roll calls are held in alphabetical order. We document that senators early in the order are less likely to vote with the majority of their own party than those whose last name places them at the end of the alphabet. To speak to the mechanism behind this result, we develop a...