We study the influence of credit default swaps (CDS) trading on the costs of bond intermediation. After CDS initiation, CDS firms pay 12-28% (8-20 basis points) lower underwriting fees than similar non-CDS firms do. Underwriting fees decline more for riskier issuers and illiquid bonds for which...

We first wrote and circulated our “Rookie's Guide” paper about the academic labor market for newly minted finance PhDs twenty years ago. It passed hand-to-hand and via photocopies of photocopies sent using snail mail (or, back then, we just called it ‘mail'). Since then, much has changed...

We explore a firm's choice between public and private debt in a model where the firm's financing source affects its product market behavior. Debt can promote excessively risky product market strategies, but lender control through restrictive covenants - a characteristic of private debt - can...

We quantify the value of social status using market prices for Delaware license plates. Delaware plates are numbered sequentially, are private property, and can be legally bequeathed or traded in a secondary market. License plates offer no direct economic benefit other than authorizing the...

We use a matching method that constructs synthetic counterfactual states to identify the channels that link bank deregulation to financial integration, and thereby to economic growth. We document a positive, but conditional, effect of financial integration on economic growth. We explore the...

This paper uses detailed data from an online peer-to-peer lending intermediary to test whether local access to finance affects consumers' willingness to pay for loans. After controlling for local economic conditions and borrower credit quality, we find that borrowers who reside in areas with...

We examine the impact of population aging on municipal access to credit. A one standard deviation increase in a state's population age leads to a 23 basis point increase in municipal bond issue spread. Three mechanisms drive this effect: income tax revenue, healthcare liabilities, and pension...

We show that IPOs have non-trivial positive spillover effects on local labor markets, business environments, consumer spending, real estate, and migration. We mitigate endogeneity concerns about unobserved heterogeneity with restrictive geographic fixed effects coupled with a matching procedure....