Using data on federal highway grants from the Department of Transportation's Federal High- way Administration, this paper investigates several questions regarding the political economy of highway funding. We investigate the period 1994 - 2008 and examine whether political alignment and political...

Using a panel of U.S. states over the period 1985 - 2010, we examine how Democratic governors affect economic freedom compared to Republican governors. Economic freedom is measured using the Economic Freedom of North America Index (EFNA). Given the emphasis this index places on smaller...

The Depositors Insurance Fund and Share Insurance Fund, private organizations in Massachusetts, have provided a full guarantee on deposits held at Massachusetts state-chartered savings and cooperative institutions since 1934. I instrument for the choice to participate in these funds and find...

This paper examines the cash management practices of firms during the period of increased FDIC insurance on noninterest-bearing accounts. While the Transaction Account Guarantee Program and Dodd-Frank Act were intended to help banks by preventing deposit withdrawals, they also seem to have...

Using announcement memos released by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), we show that corporations increase liquidity during the quarter the NBER announces a peak in the business cycle. This reaction is primarily restricted to memos about peaks in the business cycle, whether it is a...

Between 1970 and 2014 the federal funds rate soared from approximately 7.18% to 16.38%, and subsequently declined to 0.09%. Based on economic theory, corporate cash holdings should have moved inversely with these interest rate swings. Using a new measure of cash holdings and a random effects...

This paper examines the relationship between cash holdings and business cycles between 1976 and 2012, with a primary emphasis on how cash holdings vary during the business cycle and specifically during recessions. Using several different quarterly data sets, findings confirm that cash holdings...

This paper is the first to examine the unlimited deposit insurance on noninterest-bearing transaction accounts (NIBTAs) provided by Section 343 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank). During Dodd-Frank, banks had a smaller ratio of NIBTAs compared to later...

We analyze earnings credit rates (ECRs) within the U.S. banking system from 2002 until 2021. ECRs are a form of non-monetary interest used to offset commercial account fees and have not been widely studied due to data limitations. The Dodd-Frank Act led to the repeal of Regulation Q, which had...