Leveraged investments have become a fundamental feature of modern economies. The new financial products allow people to take greater-than-usual exposures to risk factors. This thesis analyzes several different aspects of the risks involved by some frequently used leveraged products: CDOs, CDSs,...

We show that cross-border financial flows arise when countries differ in their abilities to use assets as collateral. Financial integration is a way of sharing scarce collateral. The ability of one country to leverage and tranche assets provides attractive financial contracts to investors in the...