The central problem for financial regulation is reducing systemic risk. Systemic risk is the risk that the failure of one significant institution can cause or significantly contribute to the failure of other significant institutions. This paper addresses the five most important policies for...

This paper provides a new interpretation of the early rise of rating agencies in the United States (initially known as Mercantile Agencies). We explain this American exceptionality through an inductive approach that revisits the conventional parallel with the UK. In contrast with earlier...

This paper investigates whether the costs of corruption are conditional on the extent of government intervention in the economy. We use data on corruption convictions and economic growth between 1975 and 2007 across the U.S. states to test this hypothesis. Although no state approaches the level...

We model the asset-opacity choice of an intermediary subject to rollover risk in wholesale funding markets. Greater opacity means investors form more dispersed beliefs about an intermediary’s profitability. The endogenous benefit of opacity is lower fragility when profitability is expected to...