We study the impact of the 1918 Spanish Flu on U.S. stock prices. We use the death rate to control for the impact of the global pandemic and war news reported in the New York Times to capture the positive effects of the end of World War I on stock prices. Using a new weekly hand collected NYSE...

Using a new daily dataset for all stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange between 1905 and 1910, we study the impact of information asymmetry during the liquidity freeze and market run of October 1907 - one of the most severe financial crises of the 20th century. We estimate that the market...

This paper analyzes and explains the disparate paths of development among venture capital organizations in the United States and Germany over the post-World War II period, contrasting the early emergence and burgeoning of the sector in the U.S. with the lagging development in Germany. The...

In theory, banning short selling stabilizes stock prices but undermines pricing efficiency and has ambiguous impacts on market liquidity. Empirical studies find mixed and conflicting results. This paper leverages cross-country policy variation during the 2020 Covid crisis to assess differential...

The sources of finance for industrial development include (i) banks, (ii) securities markets, (iii) internal finance, (iv) alternative sources of finance such as angel finance, trade credit, families, and friends, and (v) governments. All four countries had sophisticated financial systems and...

This book examines the origins of modern corporate finance systems during the rapid industrialization period leading up to World War I. The study leads to three sets of conclusions. First, modern financial systems are rooted in the past, are idiosyncratic to specific countries, and are highly...

Using a new daily dataset for all stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange between 1905 and 1910, we study the impact of information asymmetry during the liquidity freeze and market run of October 1907 - one of the most severe financial crises of the 20th century. We estimate that the market...

We find that the bans on covered short sales, implemented in several countries during the financial crisis of 2008-09 improved market liquidity or at least had a neutral impact; a result we argue could be expected in theory, given a simple variation on the Diamond-Verrechia (1987) model. The...

Using a new daily dataset for all stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange between 1905 and 1910, we study the impact of information asymmetry during the liquidity freeze and market run of October 1907 - one of the most severe financial crises of the 20th century. We estimate that the market...