This paper summarizes lessons from interviews of 22 consumers who use prepaid cards (PPCs), an emerging product in the market space between institution-based transaction accounts and non-account services like check-cashing and money orders. A majority of interviewees used PPCs as their primary...

In the U.S., corporate bankruptcies generally go through the court system for resolution, whereas bank failures are resolved by bank regulatory agencies. The goal of corporate bankruptcy is to maximize the value of the firm as a "going concern" in liquidation to the shareholders. In a bank...

The financial service industry is facing intense pressures to reduce costs while growing new customers and introducing new products to attract those customers. Recently, more firms are using offshoring strategies (i.e. outsourcing of operations to foreign countries) to cut costs. However there...

The Federal tax code creates challenges for comparing the profit rates of different banks on a consistent basis. The earnings of banks that elect to operate under Subchapter S of the Federal tax code are not subject to the Federal corporate income tax, but S-bank shareholders are taxed on their...

This study investigates the impact of portfolio disclosure on hedge fund performance. Using a regression discontinuity design, I investigate the effect of the disclosure requirements that take effect when an investment company's assets exceed $100 million; when that occurs, a fund is required by...

Recent academic and popular discussions of budget deficits rely upon a simplistic and, in large part, false conception of their effects. The recent literature ignores the fact that deficit effects depend on their source and on private sector responses to them. It also matters whether budget...

This study draws on 20 in-depth interviews with microfinance institutions, practitioners, analysts/policymakers, and academics, along with a review of literature to understand and assess the state of the microfinance industry in the United States in terms of its salient features, critical issues...

We test the predictability of investment fraud using a panel of mandatory disclosures filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). We show that past regulatory and legal violations, conflicts of interest, and monitoring have significant power to predict fraud. Avoiding the 5% of...

This paper reviews academic studies of bank capital regulation in an effort to evaluate the intellectual foundation for the imposition of the Basel I and Basel II systems of risk-based capital requirements. The theoretical literature yields general agreement about the immediate effects of...

Credit literacy depends, in part, on understanding credit report information and scores. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) conducted a study in 2004 to assess consumers’ knowledge of their credit report and credit score, and the dispute resolution process. This study uses the GAO...