This paper examines recent evidence on the characteristics and pricing of debt securities underwritten by Section 20 subsidiaries of U.S. commercial bank holding companies relative to those underwritten by investment houses. Our results show that Section 20 underwritings of lower-credit rated...

Commercial banks have been a relatively recent entrant into the corporate securities underwriting market as a result of certain relaxations of the Glass-Steagall Act (especially Section 20 of the Act). The Congress and the academia have been debating the benefits and costs of allowing commercial...

This paper examines the price reaction of loans relative to bonds prior to and surrounding information intensive events, such as corporate (loan and bond) defaults, and bankruptcies using a unique dataset of daily secondary market prices of loans. Specifically, we find that risk-adjusted loan...

We study the effect of a sovereign credit rating change of one country on the sovereign credit spreads of other countries from 1991 to 2000. We find evidence of spillover effects, that is, a ratings change in one country has a significant effect on sovereign credit spreads of other countries....

A continuing controversy is whether U.S. securities laws are enforced against foreign firms, since public enforcement actions by the SEC are infrequent and often result in insignificant penalties. We examine private enforcement actions of U.S. securities laws and find that 269 securities...

A continuing controversy is whether U.S. securities laws are enforced against foreign firms, since public enforcement actions by the SEC are infrequent and often result in insignificant penalties. We examine private enforcement actions of U.S. securities laws and find that 269 securities...