The global imbalance explanation of the financial crisis of 2007-09 suggests that demand for riskless assets from countries with current account surpluses created fragility in countries with current account deficits, most notably, in the United States. We examine this explanation by analyzing...

We analyze the link between creditor rights and firms' investment policies, proposing that stronger creditor rights in bankruptcy reduce corporate risk-taking. In cross-country analysis, we find that stronger creditor rights induce greater propensity of firms to engage in diversifying...

We develop a model of internal governance where the self-serving actions of top management are limited by the potential reaction of subordinates. Internal governance can mitigate agency problems and ensure that firms have substantial value, even with little or no external governance by...

We analyze asset-backed commercial paper conduits which played a central role in the early phase of the financial crisis of 2007-09. We document that commercial banks set up conduits to securitize assets while insuring the newly securitized assets using credit guarantees. The credit guarantees...

We build a model of the financial sector to explain why adverse asset shocks in good economic times lead to a sudden drying up of liquidity. Financial firms raise short-term debt in order to finance asset purchases. When asset fundamentals worsen, debt induces firms to risk-shift; this limits...

What is the effect of financial crises and their resolution on banks' choice of liquid asset holdings? When risky assets have limited pledgeability and banks have relative expertise in employing risky assets, the market for these assets clears only at fire-sale prices following a large number of...

This paper examines how much capital banks should optimally hold. Our model encompasses different kinds of moral hazard studied in banking: asset substitution (or risk shifting, e.g., making risky, negative net present value loans), managerial rent seeking (e.g., shirking or investing in...

Financial crises are associated with reduced volumes and extreme levels of rates for term inter-bank loans, reflected in the one-month and three-month Libor. We explain such stress by modeling leveraged banks’ precautionary demand for liquidity. Asset shocks impair a bank’s ability to roll...

We show that financial sector bailouts and sovereign credit risk are intimately linked. A bailout benefits the economy by ameliorating the under-investment problem of the financial sector. However, increasing taxation of the non-financial sector to fund the bailout may be inefficient since it...

We document that the deregulation of bank branching restrictions in the United States triggered a reallocation across sectors, with end effects on state-level volatility. The change cannot be explained simply by shifts in sector-level returns and volatility. A reallocation effect is at play,...