Remarks at The Economic Club of New York, New York City.

The issues of liquidity and price transparency in derivatives markets have taken on greater import given regulatory efforts under way to improve their transparency. To date, the lack of transaction data has impeded the understanding of how the inflation swap and other derivatives markets...

The Capital Assistance Program (CAP) was created by the U.S. government in February 2009 to provide backup capital to large financial institutions unable to raise sufficient capital from private investors. Under the terms of the CAP, a participating bank receives contingent capital by issuing...

How should high average initial returns on new public offerings of common stocks be interpreted? The usual view is that such offerings are intentionally underpriced. This study draws on previously neglected information about return distributions and market practice to advance a different...

What accounts for the extraordinary performance of the U.S. economy in recent years? How is that we have been able to enjoy such strong economic growth and resulting low unemployment rates without an upturn in inflation? The author reviews the primary explanations offered for these unusually...

The distribution of returns on common stocks is, arguably, one of the most widely studied financial market characteristics. The performance of stock prices during breaks in trading has received considerable attention in recent years, especially since the advent of "circuit breakers" designed to...

The prices of stocks, bonds, and other assets frequently fluctuate, and sometimes these fluctuations are quite large. Such price shifts have important economic implications, including the possibility that asset prices have predictive power for the business cycle. In this article, Lee Ohanian...