Publications

Educators

Purchase

14 Mar 2023
In Practice

What Does the Failure of Silicon Valley Bank Say About the State of Finance?

crisis—and was the second-biggest to fail ever. Analysts say SVB was largely unprepared for the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate increases, which shrank the value of its investments. As word spread quickly online that the bank... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Financial Services; Banking

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Becker’s research revolves around the way financing supply and financial conditions affect firm behavior, investment, and financing choices. His work on financial contracting has revealed that, in recent years, greater competition has tended to lower rather... View Details

Article

The Economics of Structured Finance

By: Joshua D. Coval, Jakub W. Jurek and Erik Stafford

This paper investigates the spectacular rise and fall of structured finance. The essence of structured finance activities is the pooling of economic assets like loans, bonds, and mortgages, and the subsequent issuance of a prioritized capital structure of claims, known... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Asset Management; Debt Securities; Investment; Risk Management; Behavior

2012
Working Paper

Reaching for Yield in the Bond Market

By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina

Reaching-for-yield—the propensity to buy riskier assets in order to achieve higher yields—is believed to be an important factor contributing to the credit cycle. This paper analyses this phenomenon in the corporate bond market. Specifically, we show evidence for... View Details

Keywords: Fixed Income; Reaching For Yield; Financial Intermediation; Insurance Companies; Insurance; Bonds; Assets; Risk Management; Investment Return; Investment Portfolio; Insurance Industry

SSRN

24 Jun 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Bank Structure and the Terms of Lending to Small Businesses

Keywords: by Rodrigo Canales & Ramana Nanda; Banking

March 2022
Article

Contractual Restrictions and Debt Traps

By: Ernest Liu and Benjamin N. Roth

Microcredit and other forms of small-scale ﬁnance have failed to catalyze entrepreneurship in developing countries. In these credit markets, borrowers and lenders often bargain over not only the interest rate but also implicit restrictions on types of investment. We... View Details

Keywords: Microfinance; Entrepreneurship; Developing Countries and Economies; Financing and Loans

March 18, 2009
Article

Regulate, Baby, Regulate

The U.S. today faces its biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. That is why Barack Obama and his team have been looking to Franklin Delano Roosevelt for help. The stimulus measure passed by Congress in February that includes money for building... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Management Teams; Infrastructure; Insurance; Negotiation Deal; Government and Politics; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Credit; Banks and Banking; Debt Securities; United States

2016
Working Paper

Financing Payouts

By: Joan Farre-Mensa, Roni Michaely and Martin Schmalz

We study the extent to which firms rely on the capital markets to fund their payouts. We find that 42% of firms that pay out capital also initiate debt or equity issues in the same year, resulting in 32% of aggregate payouts being externally financed. Most firms with... View Details

Keywords: Payout Policy; Financing Decisions; Debt Issues; Equity Issues; Capital Structure; Decision Making; Financing and Loans; Corporate Finance

SSRN

June 2014
Article

Frictions in Shadow Banking: Evidence from the Lending Behavior of Money Market Funds

By: Sergey Chernenko and Adi Sunderam

We document the consequences of money market fund risk taking during the European sovereign debt crisis. Using a novel data set of security-level holdings of prime money market funds, we show that funds with large exposures to risky Eurozone banks suffered significant... View Details

Keywords: Money Market Mutual Funds; European Sovereign Debt Crisis; Runs; Contagion; Risk Taking; Investment Funds; Financial Crisis; Europe

24 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

What’s Government’s Role in Regulating Home Purchase Financing?

all, if the government charges the right price for bearing the credit risk of its guarantee, the effect on mortgage rates is likely to be small. Second, the government guarantee proposals that involve... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services

16 May 2023
In Practice

After Silicon Valley Bank's Flameout, What's Next for Entrepreneurs?

roughly one third of our portfolio of over 200 companies had some relationship with the bank. The startup ecosystem has benefited in recent years from a combination of low interest rates and expanded credit. The contraction of View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman; Technology; Financial Services

Forthcoming
Article

Institutional Corporate Bond Pricing

By: Ishita Sen, Lorenzo Bretscher, Lukas Schmid and Varun Sharma

We propose an equilibrium corporate bond pricing model that accommodates the heterogeneity in institutional investors' preferences and mandates in an empirically tractable way. Our model, estimated on rich holdings data, quantifies investors' preferences and demand... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Bonds; Demand Systems; Insurance Companies; Mutual Funds; Liquidity; Bonds; Price; Investment Funds

SSRN

24 Sep 2007
Research & Ideas

The FDA: What Will the Next 100 Years Bring?

(coauthored with Joanna Radin), Perspectives on Risk and Regulation: The FDA at 100, has just been released. The book collects views on the work and challenges of the agency from FDA officials past and present, as well as from executives... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Biotechnology; Consumer Products; Food & Beverage; Health

September 2018
Case

Verisk: Trailblazing in the Big Data Jungle

By: Andrew Wasynczuk, Francesca Gino and Karim Sameh

This case revolves around Verisk Analytics' initiatives to drive innovation throughout the firm's many business verticals. Verisk, originally named ISO, started life as an insurance rating agency in the early 1970s, acting as an intermediary between insurance companies... View Details

Educators

Purchase

2010
Other Unpublished Work

God, Government and Outsiders: The Influence of Religious Beliefs on Depositor Behavior in an Emerging Market.

By: Ayesha K. Khan and Tarun Khanna

This paper provides evidence that religious beliefs can have a significant impact on individual financial choices. Using proprietary panel data on the distribution of bank deposits across all commercial banks in Pakistan over a 33-month period, I find that Islamic... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Commercial Banking; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Consumer Behavior; Emerging Markets; Religion; Banking Industry; Pakistan

2016
Working Paper

Entrepreneurship and Public Health Insurance

By: Gareth Olds

I examine the relationship between public health insurance and firm formation. Developing a variant of regression discontinuity, I find the Child Health Insurance Program lowered the child uninsured rate by 40% and increased self-employment by 15%. Monte Carlo evidence... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Entrepreneurship