We provide empirical evidence that risk sharing enhances specialization in production. To the best of our knowledge, this well-established and important theoretical proposition has not been tested before. Our empirical procedure is summarized as follows. First, we construct a measure of...

Using a unique newly constructed data set on Israeli IPO firms in the 1990s, we study costs and benefits of universal banking. The post-issue accounting profitability of firms underwritten by bank affiliated underwriters that were also borrowers from the same bank in the IPO year, is...