Interviewing in professional labor markets is a costly process for firms. Moreover, poor screening can have a persistent negative impact on firms' bottom lines and candidates' careers. In a simple dynamic model where firms can pay a cost to interview applicants who have private information about...

This paper studies the connection between risk taking and executive compensation in financial institutions. A theoretical model of shareholders, debtholders, depositors, and an executive suggests that 1) in principle, excessive risk taking (in the form of risk shifting) may be addressed by...

We examine the impact of fatalism, the belief that one has little or no control over future events, on the decision of whether or not to save. We develop a model that predicts that fatalism decreases savings for moderately risk averse individuals, increases savings for highly risk averse...

The reduced accuracy of credit ratings on structured finance products in the boom just preceding the financial crisis has prompted investigation into the business of Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs). While CRAs have long held that their behavior is disciplined by reputational concerns, the value of...

Recent academic work and policy analysis give insight into the governance problems exposed by the financial crisis and suggest possible solutions. We begin this paper by explaining why governance of banks differs from governance of non-financial firms. We then look at four areas of governance:...

How does market information affect credit ratings? How do credit ratings affect market information? We analyze a model in which a credit rating agency's (CRA's) rating is followed by a market for credit risk that provides a public signal - the price. A more accurate rating decreases market...

The spectacular failure of top-rated structured finance products has brought renewed attention to the conflicts of interest of Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs). We model both the CRA conflict of understating credit risk to attract more business, and the issuer conflict of purchasing only the most...

The investigations into LIBOR have highlighted that it is subject to manipulation. We examinea new method for constructing LIBOR that produces an unbiased estimator of the true rate.LIBOR itself is based solely on transactions. We allow for fines when a bank's transaction isdifferent than a...

The rise of sustainable investing comes coupled with the question of what impact it has. We assume that firms can contribute to the public good, e.g., by reducing carbon emissions, and investors may take into account the amount of public good that firms produce when making their investment...

A growing consensus holds that cultural standards are at least as important as formal rules for the effectiveness and soundness of the banking sector. Nevertheless, the banking literature is mostly silent on cultural effects. We present an analysis of banking culture that draws upon prior...