Since 2003, the French unemployment insurance system provides downside insurance to eligible unemployed workers who decide to start a business. We evaluate how this policy change affects entry into self-employment. The reform significantly increases firm creation without worsening the quality of...

Since 1967, all French firms with more than 100 employees are required to share a fraction of their excess-profits with their employees. Through this scheme, firms with excess-profits distribute on average 10.5\% of their pre-tax income to workers. In 1990, the eligibility threshold was reduced...

We show that retail trading activity has a positive effect on the volatility of stock returns. To identify this effect, we use a reform of the French stock market that triggers a drop in retail trading activity by raising the relative cost of speculative trading for retail investors. The daily...

This paper empirically documents the performance and behavior of family firms listed on the French stock exchange between 1994 and 2000. On the French stock market, approximately one third of the firms are widely held, another third are founder-controlled and the remaining third are...

Using a dataset of 839 French deals, we look at the change in corporate behavior following an LBO relative to an adequately chosen control group. In the three years following a leveraged buyout, targets become more profitable, grow much faster than their peer group, issue additional debt and...

The cash-flow exposure of banks to interest rate risk, or income gap, is a significant determinant of the transmission of monetary policy to bank lending and real activity. When the Fed Funds rate rises, banks with a larger income gap generate stronger earnings and contract their lending by less...

We consider a dynamic economy populated by heterogeneous firms subject to generic capital frictions: adjustment costs, taxes and financing constraints. A random subset of firms in this economy receives an empirical "treatment", which modifies the parameters governing these frictions. An...

The correlation across US states in house price growth increased steadily between 1976 and 2000. This paper shows that the contemporaneous geographic integration of the US banking market, via the emergence of large banks, was a primary driver of this phenomenon. To this end, we first...

Using internal loan level data, we provide evidence consistent with risk-shifting in the lending behavior of a large subprime mortgage originator -- New Century Financial Corporation -- starting in 2004. This change follows the monetary policy tightening implemented by the Fed in the spring of...

We study a large-scale French reform that provided generous downside insurance for unemployed individuals starting a business. We study whether this reform affects the composition of people who are drawn into entrepreneurship. New firms started in response to the reform are, on average, smaller,...