The design of leveraged and inverse exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has raised concerns that they may exacerbate volatility in financial markets by mechanically rebalancing their portfolios in the same direction as contemporaneous returns. We show theoretically, however, that capital flows can...

We provide evidence that existing studies relating financial condition to product market cooperation produce mixed results because of unique features of the industries examined. In particular, all evidence suggesting that poor financial condition decreases cooperation comes from the airline...

Leveraged and inverse exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have been heavily criticized for exacerbating volatility in financial markets because it is thought that they mechanically rebalance their portfolios in the same direction as contemporaneous returns. We argue that these criticisms are likely...

We examine recent regulation requiring US municipal governments to disclose private debt. We show that governments fail to disclose 55-80% of reportable debt events and that, conditional on disclosure, filings often omit contract details essential for bond pricing. Non-compliant issuers are also...

We describe a recent innovation in the corporate lending business whereby banks tie the interest rate during the life of the loan to the borrowers' credit default swap spreads or to a CDS index. We also discuss the potential impact this innovation may have on bank lending and more generally on...

We re-examine the relation between taxes and corporate leverage, using variation in state corporate income tax rates. In contrast with prior research, we document that corporate leverage increases following tax cuts for both privately held and publicly listed firms. We use an estimated dynamic...

This paper uses novel regulatory data on internal loan-level risk metrics of US banks to show that corporate loan interest rates line up closely with measures of hard information. We show that the variation in interest rates in excess of what internal models suggest provides limited information...

U.S state and local governments are increasingly turning to bank financing amid deteriorating fiscal positions. We document that the maturity and collateral structure of municipal bank loans allows borrowers additional debt capacity by diluting outstanding long-term bonds. Specifically, most...

We study how supervisory coverage affects syndicated lending. Relying on an unexpected change in supervisory coverage, we document that the costs of bank credit for borrowers excluded from supervision decrease by approximately 18% relative to an otherwise similar control group. We also find that...