We examine investors’ reactions to announcements of large capital infusions by U.S. financial institutions (FIs) from 2000 to 2009. These infusions include private market infusions (seasoned equity offerings (SEOs)) as well as injections of government capital under the Troubled Asset Relief...

We analyze the potential competitive effects of the proposed Basel II capital regulations on US bank credit card lending. We find that bank issuers operating under Basel II will face higher regulatory capital minimums than Basel I banks, with differences due to the way the two regulations treat...

We amend the standard cost model to account for the role of financial capital in banking. The cost function is conditioned on the level of capital, but we model the demand for financial capital so that it can serve as a cushion against insolvency for potentially risk-averse managers and as a...

The Great Recession focused attention on large financial institutions and systemic risk. We investigate whether large size provides any cost advantages to the economy and, if so, whether these cost advantages are due to technological scale economies or too-big-to-fail subsidies. Estimating scale...