Greece's debt-to-GDP ratio is reaching unsustainable levels. But why should the debt load of such a small country cause such outsized tremors in global financial markets?Greek debt may be relatively small, but a sufficient amount is held by a few major banks in Europe to cause disruptions to the...

As this piece is being written, the Obama administration is exploring the idea of creating one or more aggregator institutions, “bad” banks, to take illiquid assets - mostly mortgages and mortgage-related securities of uncertain value - off the hands of the private banking system. Indeed, by...

Financial system policymakers around the world continue to respond vigorously to the problems in financial markets, financial institutions, and financial system regulation and supervision brought into high relief by the global financial crisis. However, the overall understanding of what those...

In the past three decades, China has transformed itself from a central-planned, agricultural economy to the world's manufacturing base and growth engine. Expanding at an average annual rate of more than 10 percent, the Chinese economy is now the second-largest in the world. Globalization is...

With the failure of the Congressional "supercommittee," national attention is once more focused on the issue of ever-mounting federal budget deficits. This paper provides a primer on budget deficits, and surpluses from the creation of the federal government. From 1790 to 2010, government...

Firms with higher inflexibility to adjust their scale hold more cash than flexible firms due to precautionary considerations. This finding is confirmed in a regression discontinuity design that potentially mitigates endogeneity concerns. Consistent with the precautionary motive, inflexible firms...

Firms' inflexibility to adjust their scale persistently explains capital structure variations in a comprehensive sample and randomly-selected sub-samples. Higher inflexibility leads to lower financial leverage, potentially due to higher default risk and lower value of tax shields. Contraction...

In this work, we designed and synthesized two novel 2-nitroimidazole-naphthalimide-derived antitumor agents D-2 and D-5 . The oxidative damage induced by the interaction between D-2 ( D-5 ) and DNA was investigated by CV and DPV methods. The efficient electrochemical biosensors were achieved...

Micro-energy systems contribute significantly to environmental improvement by reducing dependence on power grids through the utilization of multiple renewable energy sources. This study quantified the environmental impact of a micro-energy network system in an industrial park through a life...

My dissertation contributes to auction studies. It analyzes the bidding behavior in multi-round auctions. It is motivated by an interesting multi-round feature observed in the procurement auctions held by the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT hereafter), which adopts secret reserve...