The benefits of cross-border financial activity are wide-ranging, from greater competition and more efficient markets to broader and more stable access to capital. During normal economic times, the official sector and private sector share an incentive to foster such cross-border financial...

Banks modify more CRE loans than CMBS, contributing to better loan performance when property incomes decline. However, banks have higher delinquency rates for less-stressed loans, consistent with modification policies encouraging strategic default. Motivated by these facts, we develop a tradeoff...

This article reviews the rapidly proliferating economic literature on climate change and financial policy. We find: (1) enduring challenges in estimating the statistical properties of a changed climate; (2) emerging evidence of financial markets pricing in climate-related risks; and (3) a range...

Under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) banks can fulfill their affirmative obligation to meet local credit needs by lending in low-to-moderate-income (LMI) communities or by purchasing loans made by others. This paper evaluates whether giving CRA credit for purchases has had its intended...

Banks are vital suppliers of money-like safe assets, which they produce by issuing short-term liabilities and pledging collateral. But their ability to create safe assets varies over time as leverage constraints fluctuate. I present a model to describe private safe-asset production when...

Bank accounts are critical for participation in the modern economy. However, these accounts frequently require maintenance fees and incur overdraft charges. We assess whether minimum account balances to avoid fees, account maintenance fee amounts, and non-sufficient funds charges are...

The liquidity strains that contributed to the meltdown of the mortgage market in the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) re-emerged in the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) Crisis. Some of these strains were acute. For example, the dependence of mortgage real estate investment trusts (REITs) on short-term...

After an unprecedented number of banks suspended operations in the during Panic of 1893, the head regulator of banks chartered by the United States government allowed about 100 banks to reopen after certifying their solvency. We evaluate whether actions by bank owners to change management,...

A risk factor linked to aggregate equity issuance conditions explains the empirical performance of investment factors based on the asset growth anomaly of Cooper, Gulen, and Schill (2008). This new risk factor, dubbed equity financing risk (EFR) factor, subsumes investment factors in leading...

A large-scale microcredit expansion program---together with a credit bureau accessible to all lenders---can enable unbanked borrowers to build a credit history, facilitating their transition to commercial banks. Loan-level data from Rwanda show the program improved access to credit and reduced...