In some countries, it is common that initial public offerings (IPOs) are preceded by forward ("when-issued'') trading of the shares; in the U.S., such trading is prohibited. We analyze the effect of when-issued trading on the pricing and allocation of IPO shares. We demonstrate that the optimal...

I analyze banks' incentives to acquire expertise in judging the credit-worthiness of borrowers in an industry with uncertain business conditions. The optimal industrial organization of bank lending features several banks with industry expertise, as well as a competitive fringe of banks without...

We analyze the profitability of government-owned banks' lending to their owners, using a unique data set of relatively homogeneous government-owned banks; the banks are all owned by similarly structured local governments in a single country. Making use of a natural experiment that altered the...

We examine the interaction of two processes for gathering information required for pricing unseasoned securities: i)mechanisms for eliciting information directly from investors, and ii)information revelation through when - issued trading, i.e. forward trading in not - yet-issued securities. We...

We study IPO pricing in Germany in order to determine whether when-issued trading provides information that is useful for setting IPO offer prices, and whether such trading supplants bookbuilding as a source of information. We find that when-issued trading reveals relevant information for...

We analyze the relation between firms' exposure to exogenous business risk and their financing choices, based on a sample of firms for which we can measure such exposure. The results show that firms more exposed to exogenous risk use less debt financing. We also analyze the relation between the...

We explain and provide evidence of effects of leverage on pricing. Our model identifies two interacting effects: firms set higher prices (under-invest in market share) if they have more debt, but engage in dynamic risk-shifting by setting lower prices (over-invest in market share) just prior to...

We explain and provide evidence for effects of leverage on pricing. Our model identifies two effects that either counteract or reinforce each other, depending on the debt maturity structure: (i) firms set higher prices (underinvest in market share) if they have more debt, and (ii) firms engage...

How does small-firm employment respond to exogenous labor productivity risk? We find that this depends on the capitalization of firms' local banks. The evidence comes from firms offering (quasi-) fixed employment to workers whose productivity depends on the weather. Weather risk reduces this...