We investigate differences in the characteristics and performance of securitized loans versus loans held on lenders’ balance sheets using a unique data set of commercial mort­ gages. The main findings are as follows. First, consistent with risk-sharing being a likely reason for securitization, loan size strongly predicts the likelihood of securiti­ zation. The largest 10% of loans have a 44% ch...

Bank crises, by interrupting liquidity provision, have been viewed as resulting in welfare losses. In a model of banking with moral hazard, we show that second best bank contracts that improve on autarky ex ante require costly crises to occur with positive probability at the interim stage. When bank payoffs are partially appropriable, either directly via imposition of fines or indirectly by the...

This paper uses unique NYSE audit trail data to evaluate spreads and information content for different order types. Actual spreads are positive for liquidity-demanding orders and negative for liquidity-supplying orders after controlling for order direction. However, because a large fraction of liquidity-demanding orders get price improvement, the actual spread for liquidity-demanding orders is ...

A string of theoretical papers shows that the non-exclusivity of credit contracts generates important negative contractual externalities. Employing a unique dataset, we identify how these externalities affect the supply of credit. Using internal information on a creditor’s willingness to lend, we find that a creditor reduces its credit supply when a borrower obtains a loan at another creditor (...

Like many financial contracts, derivatives are subject to default risk. A very popular mechanism in derivatives markets to mitigate the risk of non-performance on contracts is margining. By attaching collateral to a contract, margining supposedly reduces default risk. The broader impacts of the different types of margins are more ambiguous, however. In this paper we develop both, a theoretical ...

In addition to providing utility, and possibly capital gains, housing facilitates credit transactions when home equity serves as collateral. We document big increases in home-equity loans coinciding with the US house-price boom, and suggest a connection. When it is used as collateral, housing bears a liquidity premium. Since liquidity is endogenous, and depends to some extent on beleifs, even w...

This introduces the symposium on financial economics. JEL Classification Codes: G01, G02, G11, G12, G18, G21, G23, G28

We compare capital requirements derived by tail conditional expectation (TCE) with those derived by tail conditional median (TCM) and find that there is no clear-cut relationship between these two measures in empirical data. Our results highlight the relevance of TCM as a robust alternative to TCE, especially for regulatory control. JEL Classification: G10, G11, G23, G29

There is long-standing theoretical debate on the role of collateral in …nancial markets. There is no satisfactory evidence of the causal relationship (if any) between the amount of collateral required and the subsequent probability of overdues. We analyze an exogenous change in the number of cosigners required as collateral on small loans in South India. Our regression discontinuity approach re...