By liquidity services, we mean in this paper the whole set of key activities which permit that the final holders of financial claims may switch to cash when needed while nevertheless providing stable long term financing to companies and households. Secondary securities markets, financial...

We study how the interplay of disclosure and regulation shapes capital allocation in reward crowdfunding. Using data from Kickstarter, the largest online reward crowdfunding platform, we show that, even in the absence of clear regulation and enforcement mechanisms, disclosure helps entrepreneurs...

Financial contracts are complicated and consumers often do not grasp them in their entirety. This may lead to financial mistakes. We develop a quantitative theory of unsecured credit and equilibrium default in a market with sophisticated and naïve borrowers who sometimes misunderstand their...

Consumer protection shifts risks from consumers to businesses. This raises marginal costs and equilibrium prices. It is justified when markets are not strong enough to allocate contractual risks or accident risks efficiently, especially in cases of severe asymmetric information between suppliers...

Following in the footsteps of the man whose name is associated with the Forty Thieves, and whose immortal words gave him access to the treasure, the twenty-first century's Alibaba found his pot of gold in Chinese consumer with his 'Open Sesame': the protection that Alipay delivers to consumers....

Financial systems worldwide are increasingly experiencing the mounting pressure of the technology-based financial innovations. Some of these developments are generating alternative financial structures existing parallelly to the "old" ones, whereas some others are simply replacing the "old"...

We analyze 15.6 million storefront payday loans made to 1.8 million unique borrowers in 2013 to examine payday loan terms and usage. We find that loan prices and loan amounts are generally not at state-mandated maximum levels. For the 30 states in our sample, we find that the number of loans per...

India's financial inclusion agenda has witnessed a paradigm shift over the last decade, away from an emphasis on credit to a more comprehensive approach toward financial services (e.g., opening bank accounts and offering basic financial products, such as insurance). This paper describes the...

Die Diskussion über den Kreditwucher und dessen Zu- oder Unzulässigkeit beschäftigt seit Jahrhunderten Philosophen, Theologen, Moralisten und sogar Dichter. Die rechtliche Handhabung stellte für die Gesetzgeber aller Zeiten eine Herausforderung dar. Neu und äußerst Besorgnis erregend dabei...