Many have claimed that credit default swaps (CDSs) have lowered the cost of debt financing to firms by creating new hedging opportunities and information for investors. This paper evaluates the impact that the onset of CDS trading has on the spreads that underlying firms pay to raise funding in...

The response of aggregate lending to monetary policy is stronger in state banking markets where financially constrained banks have more market share. On the other hand, there is little difference in the response of state output across the market share financially constrained banks, implying that...

Recent bank failures are followed by significant and permanent negative declines in real county income. These declines are larger for small failures than for large failures per dollar of assets, are larger for bank failures than thrift failures, and are larger for bank closures than assisted...

We examine the effect of teenage childbearing on the adult outcomes of a sample of women who gave birth, miscarried or had an abortion as teenagers. If miscarriages are (conditionally) random, then if all miscarriages occur before teenagers can obtain abortions, using the absence of a...

We study a production economy with multiple sectors financed by issuing securities to agents who face capital constraints. Binding capital constraints propagate business cycles, and a reduction of the interest rate can increase the required return of high-haircut assets since it can increase the...

While bank capital requirements permit a bank to freely substitute between equity and subordinated debt, lenders and investors view debt and equity as imperfect substitutes. It follows that, after controlling for the level of regulatory capital, the mix of debt in capital isolates the role that...