This paper analyzes bidding behavior in oil and gas tract auctions in Brazil, where the main winner has been Petrobras, a national company. We test predictions from the theory of common -value, first -price, sealed -bid auctions with asymmetric information. The tests indicate that Petrobras was...

Syndicated loans provide an exceptional opportunity to study differences in banks' approaches to measuring risk because many of these loans are held by more than one bank. We study differences in banks' estimates of risk parameters used to calculate regulatory capital requirements for syndicated...

This paper estimates causal effects of supervision on bank performance using discontinuities in the minimum frequency of examinations required by regulation. This frequency is discontinuous at a value of bank assets that varied over time, allowing us to break the endogeneity between supervision...