We investigate the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the role played by credit constraints in the transmission mechanism, using a novel survey of expectations and plans of Italian firms, taken just before and after the outbreak. Most firms revise downward their expectations for...

Most microenterprises barely grow beyond subsistence level, as profitable investments are not realized due to barriers like credit, savings, and managerial constraints. Using panel data, this study identifies subgroups that would benefit by an intervention aiming to alleviate constraints. Two...

Consider a first-price, sealed-bid auction with interdependent valuations and private budget constraints. Focusing on the two-bidder case, we identify new sufficient conditions for the existence of a symmetric equilibrium in pure strategies. In equilibrium, agents may adopt discontinuous bidding...

This paper investigates the effects of college tuition on student debt and human capital accumulation. We exploit data from a random sample of undergraduate students in the United States and implement a research design that instruments for tuition with relatively large changes to the tuition of...

Analyzing unique data on loan applications by individuals who are majority owners of small firms, we detail how a bank's credit decisions affect their future income. We use the bank's cutoff rule, which is based on the applicants' credit scores, as the discontinuous locus providing exogenous...