A quantitative investigation of financial intermediation in the U.S. over the past 130 years yields the following results : (i) the finance industry’s share of GDP is high in the 1920s, low in the 1950s and 1960s, and high again in the 1990s and 2000s; (ii) most of these variations can be...

The financial crisis that began in 2008 has made Americans keenly aware of the enormous impact Wall Street has on the economic well-being of the nation and its citizenry. How did financial markets and institutions—commonly perceived as marginal and elitist at the beginning of the twentieth...

This paper investigates the influence of corporate governance on financial firms' performance during the 2007–2008 financial crisis. Using a unique dataset of 296 financial firms from 30 countries that were at the center of the crisis, we find that firms with more independent boards and higher...

Heightened counterparty risk during the recent financial crisis has raised questions about the role clearinghouses play in global financial stability. Empirical identification of the effect of centralized clearing on counterparty risk is challenging because of the co-incidence of macro-economic...

Gentlemen Bankers investigates the social and economic circles of one of America’s most renowned and influential financiers to uncover how the Morgan family’s power and prestige stemmed from its unique position within a network of local and international relationships. At the turn of the...

In the Newfoundland Bank Crash of 1894, the commercial banks in a duopolistic loan market both went under simultaneously. The banking system was “free”, as central bank, deposit insurance, and lender of last resort were all absent. The objective of this study is to shed light on our...

This paper provides a new interpretation of the early rise of rating agencies in the United States (initially known as ‘Mercantile Agencies’). We explain this American exceptionality through an inductive approach that revisits the conventional parallel with the UK. In contrast with earlier...

Following the Treasury-Federal Reserve Accord of March 3, 1951, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) focused on free reserves - the difference between excess reserves (reserve deposits in excess of reserve requirements) and borrowed reserves - as the touchstone of U.S. monetary policy....

This paper uses the variability of money market rates to compare the conduct of the central bank's key market operation as a fixed-rate tender (FRT) or a variable-rate tender (VRT). Nowadays, leading central banks generally use FRTs or other approaches (e.g. target rates) which yield step...

This paper provides a new interpretation of the early rise of rating agencies in the United States (initially known as Mercantile Agencies). We explain this American exceptionality through an inductive approach that revisits the conventional parallel with the UK. In contrast with earlier...