This paper uses the financial crisis of 2008 as a natural experiment to demonstrate that when measuring investment-cash flow sensitivity, the value of a firm‟s assets that can be used as collateral should be taken into account. Using panel data on U.S. firms from 1990 to 2011, it was found that the share of physical capital in assets has a strong influence on investment-cash flow sensitivity, w...

This problem, which I call the Scholes liquidation problem, is ubiquitous during unstable financial periods. Indeed, in the recent financial crisis, banks incurred large losses during the forced contraction of their balance sheets, as access to short-term financing through repo markets dried up (e.g., Adrian and Shin 2008; Brunnermeier 2009). A systemic deleveraging process propagated through t...

This paper investigates cost and profit efficiency of German hospitals. More specifically, it deals with the question how hospital efficiency varies with ownership, patient structure, and other exogenous factors, which are neither inputs nor outputs of the production process. We conduct a Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) on a multifaceted administrative German dataset combined with the balanc...

This paper investigates cost and profit efficiency of German hospitals. More specifically, it deals with the question how hospital efficiency varies with ownership, patient structure, and other exogenous factors, which are neither inputs nor outputs of the production process. We conduct a Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) on a multifaceted administrative German dataset combined with the balanc...

This paper explores the pricing of debt in a nancial system where the assets that borrowers hold to meet their obligations include claims against other borrowers. Assessing nancial claims in a system context captures features that are missing in a partial equilibrium setting. It is possible for spreads to fall as debts rise, as debt-fuelled increases in asset prices and stronger balance sheets ...

In this paper we re-examine commercial banks’ lending behavior taking into account changes in the stance of monetary policy in conjunction with changes in financial sector uncertainty. Using a very large data set covering all banks in the US between 1986–2000, we show that financial uncertainty has an important and significant role in the monetary policy transmission mechanism that varies acros...

This paper explores the pricing of debt in a financial system where the assets that borrowers hold to meet their obligations include claims against other borrowers. Assessing financial claims in a system context captures features that are missing in a partial equilibrium setting. It is possible for spreads to fall as debts rise, as debt-fuelled increases in asset prices and stronger balance she...

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statement 45 (GASB 45) obliges public employers to disclose liabilities related to postretirement medical benefits. Most state and local government entities are beginning to analyze and quantify how GASB 45 liabilities will affect their balance sheets and credit ratings. This article describes the many ways to reduce those liabilities without eliminat...

This paper investigates the responsiveness of household portfolios to tax incentives by exploiting a substantial tax reform that altered after-tax returns and cost of debt for a large number of households. An extraordinary panel data set that covers two years before and after the reform is used for the analysis. Our empirical findings suggest that households reshuffle their balance sheets in th...

The global financial crisis had detrimental consequences for banks’ balance sheets, as well as for their funding costs and profitability, thus weighing negatively on their ability to supply new loans. As a result, banks tightened credit standards for all borrowers, including non-financial corporations. The restricted access to bank funding for the corporate sector induced the latter to seek oth...