Income trust units are some of the highest selling products in the Canadian securities industry, but they have been less successful beyond Canadian borders. The author discusses the remarkable profitability and proliferation of income trusts in Canada, but maintains that arguments in favour of...

Recently there has been a dramatic change in the organizational structure of exchanges as they have demutualized and converted into for-profit entities. This has been accompanied by a public listing of shares on the exchange itself. These changes have been driven by technological and competitive...

Switching costs are a recognised issue in banking markets around the world, but in many countries, including New Zealand, regulators give them limited attention. This paper confirms the existence and relative importance of switching costs in the New Zealand banking market. We find seven...

This thesis consists of four self-contained papers related to banking, credit markets and financial stability. Paper [I] presents a credit market model and finds, using an agent based modeling approach, that credit crunches have a tendency to occur; even when credit markets are almost entirely...

In the wake of the recent financial crisis, many governments extended public guarantees to banks. We take advantage of a natural experiment, in which long-standing public guarantees were removed for a set of German banks following a lawsuit, to identify the real effects of these guarantees on...

In the wake of the recent financial crisis, many governments extended public guarantees to banks. We take advantage of a natural experiment, in which long-standing public guarantees were removed for a set of German banks following a lawsuit, to identify the real effects of these guarantees on...

We use a natural experiment and matched bank/firm data to identify the effects of bank guarantees on allocative efficiency. We find that with guarantees in place unproductive firms invest more and maintain higher rates of sales growth. Moreover, firms produce less productively. Firms also...

We construct a new systemic risk measure that quantifies vulnerability to fire-sale spillovers using detailed regulatory balance sheet data for U.S. commercial banks and repo market data for broker-dealers. Even for moderate shocks in normal times, fire-sale externalities can be substantial. For...

We construct a new systemic risk measure that quantifies vulnerability to fire-sale spillovers using detailed regulatory balance sheet data for U.S. commercial banks and repo market data for broker-dealers. Even for moderate shocks in normal times, fire-sale externalities can be substantial. For...

This paper examines the prospect of revitalizing asset-backed and non-agency mortgage-backed securitization markets rendered nearly dormant in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. First, it briefly summarizes the background of the debacle and presents historical parallels for context. Then the...