We study the government equity infusions and the incentives of banks to participate in the Capital Purchase Program (CPP) of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). We show that strong banks opted out of participating in CPP and that equity infusions were provided to banks that posed systemic...

We demonstrate a link between the twin storms underlying the current financial crisis - the market for collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and the market for leveraged loans. We show that structural changes in credit markets that led to the explosion in CDOs created an increased supply of...

We present evidence that busy outside directors are associated with weak corporate governance based on a sample of U.S. industrial firms from 1989 to 1995. When a majority of outside directors serve on three or more boards, firms exhibit lower market-to-book ratios as well as weaker operating...