This paper develops methods to compute performance measures in a specific type of loss system with multiple classes of customers sharing the same processor. Such systems arise in the modeling of a call center, where the performance measures of interest are blocking the probability of a call and...

We investigate the sources of recent changes in the performance of U.S. banks using concepts and techniques borrowed from the cross-section efficiency literature. Our most striking result is that during 1991-1997, cost productivity worsened while profit productivity improved substantially,...

"<p> Franklin Allen, James McAndrews and Philip Strahan, October 2001<p> <p>Abstract: E-finance is defined as "The provision of financial services and markets using electronic communication and computation". In this paper we outline research issues related to e-finance that we believe set the stage for...</p></p></p>

Insurance is the only policy tool in the analyst’s repertoire that can reward individuals for taking loss reduction measures in advance of a disaster by giving them lower premiums while at the same time providing these same policyholders with compensation should they suffer losses from the...

Should lenders diversify, as suggested by the financial intermediation literature, or specialize, as suggested by the corporate finance literature? I model a financial institution's ("bank's") choice between these two strategies in a setting where bank failure is costly and loan monitoring adds...

Is there something special, with respect to risk and capital, about a financial conglomerate that combines banking, insurance and potentially other financial and non-financial activities? To what degree is the risk of the whole less than the sum of its parts? This paper seeks to address these...

Throughout the financial services industry, the call center is being recognized as a critical delivery channel, helping firms to keep existing customers, expand their business, and control costs. For banks, call centers provide a cost effective means of servicing in customer requests, and are...

The financial system is regulated to achieve a wide variety of purposes. However, the objective that distinguishes financial regulation from other kinds is that of safeguarding the economy against systemic risk. Concerns regarding systemic risk focus largely on banks, which traditionally have...

The author develops a model of venture capital contracting in which the entrepreneur and venture capitalist contract under symmetric information. A condition of asymmetric information may arise subsequent to the first contract. The author shows that this condition makes debt contracts infeasible...

We model the equilibrium price and quantity of risk transfer between firms and financial intermediaries. Value-maximizing firms have downward sloping demands to cede risk, while intermediaries, who assume risk, provide less-than-fully-elastic supply. We show that equilibrium required returns...