We construct a Risk Management Index (RMI) to measure the strength and independence of the risk management function at bank holding companies (BHCs). U.S. BHCs with higher RMI before the onset of the financial crisis have lower tail risk, lower non-performing loans, and better operating and stock return performance during the financial crisis years. Over the period 1995 to 2010, BHCs with a hig...

(1) The necessary condition for an economic recovery is the new creation of purchasing power. Non-performing loans form an obstacle to the banks’ ability to create this purchasing power, and this is the root cause of the recession. (2) At the present time the central bank alone is able to increase purchasing power. It is necessary that it engages in open market purchases of assets and active fo...

How informative should bank stress tests be? I use Bayesian persuasion to formalize stress tests and show that regulators can reduce the likelihood of a bank run by performing tests which are only partially informative. Optimal stress tests give just enough failing grades to keep passing grades credible enough to avoid runs. The worse the state of the banking system, the more stringent stress t...

The universal factory floor communications protocol MTConnect allows the exchange of information between shop floor equipment and software applications. Data from shop floor devices is collected by a piece of software called adapter. The adapter sends the data to a local webserver called agent, which associates the data with an information model and makes machine data available to clients in un...

Intangible assets are a very economically significant asset class yet are largely excluded by accounting conventions from corporate balance sheets. Ownership (or control) of intangible assets can allow firms to differentiate their offerings to customers and establish some degree of competitive advantage. However, intangibles do not, apart from a few cases of licensing, generate value on their o...

Bitcoin is an online distributed ledger in which coins are distributed according to the unspent transaction output (UTXO) set, and transactions describe changes to this set. Every UTXO has associated to it an amount and signature verification key, representing the quantity that can be spent and the entity authorized to do so, respectively. Because the ledger is distributed and publicly verifiab...

We reveal pitfalls in the hedging of insurance contracts with a minimum return guarantee on the underlying investment, e.g. an external mutual fund. We analyze basis risk entailed by hedging the guarantee with a dynamic portfolio of proxy assets for the funds. We also take account of liquidity risk which arises since the insurer may need to advance funds for performing the hedge. Based on a lea...

Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is a flexible and cost-effective tool for performing structural integrity assessment and quick damage evaluation of manmade structures, including cultural heritage (CH) assets. In this context, this paper deals with the usefulness of GPR surveys enhanced by the use of a Microwave Tomographic data processing approach as a methodology for the diagnosis and monitorin...

Abstract We examine the links between human capital and endowment investing. Harnessing detailed information on university endowments, we find that higher asset allocations to alternative assets accompany levels of in endowment’s investment process. Moreover, high are linked larger returns, even a risk-adjusted basis. The improved outcomes arise because endowments (i) capture returns can assets...

Bernanke (2005) hypothesized that a "global savings glut" was causing large trade imbalances. However, we show that the global savings rates did not show a robust upward trend during the relevant period. Moreover, if there had been a global savings glut there should have been a large investment boom in the countries that imported capital. Instead, those countries experienced consumption booms. ...