Credit rating agencies (CRAs) bear some responsibility for the financial crisis that started in 2007 and remains ongoing. This is acknowledged by policymakers, market participants, and by the agencies themselves. It soon became clear that, given the depth of the crisis, CRAs would not be able to...

We construct a new systemic risk measure that quantifies vulnerability to fire-sale spillovers using detailed regulatory balance sheet data for U.S. commercial banks and repo market data for broker-dealers. Even for moderate shocks in normal times, fire-sale externalities can be substantial. For...

The London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) is a widely used indicator of funding conditions in the interbank market. As of 2013, LIBOR underpins more than $300 trillion of financial contracts, including swaps and futures, in addition to trillions more in variable-rate mortgage and student loans....

We analyze the risk premium on bank bonds at origination with a special focus on the role of implicit and explicit public guarantees and the systemic relevance of the issuing institutions. By looking at the asset swap spread on 5,500 bonds, we find that explicit guarantees and sovereign...

This paper investigates a model of endogenous product differentiation in subprime lending markets. In the subprime literature the discussion surrounds two competing hypotheses about pricing behavior. The opportunity pricing hypothesis suggests that lenders are rent seeking in their pricing...

We investigate the interdependence of the default risk of several Eurozone countries (France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain) and their domestic banks during the period June 2007 - May 2010, using daily credit default swaps (CDS). Bank bailout programs changed the...