This paper provides, for the first time, large-scale evidence that liquidity transformation by banks creates fragility, as their uninsured depositors face an incentive to withdraw their money before others (a so-called panic run). Such fragility manifests itself in stronger sensitivity of...

This paper studies the optimal determination of deposit insurance when bank runs are possible. We show that the welfare impact of changes in the level of deposit insurance coverage can be generally expressed in terms of a small number of sufficient statistics, which include the level of losses...

Big data is revolutionizing the finance industry and has the potential to significantly shape future research in finance. This special issue contains articles following the 2019 NBER/ RFS conference on big data. In this Introduction to the special issue, we define the "Big Data" phenomenon as a...

Modern information technologies have greatly facilitated timely dissemination of information to a broad base of investors at low costs. To examine their effects on the real economy, we exploit the staggered implementation of the EDGAR system from 1993 to 1996 as a shock to information...

In the decade following the financial crisis of 2008, investment funds in corporate bond markets became prominent market players and generated concerns of financial fragility. The COVID-19 crisis provides an opportunity to inspect their resilience in a major stress event. Using daily microdata,...

We study how heterogeneity in banks' asset holdings affects fragility. In the model, banks face a risk of bank runs and have to liquidate long-term assets in a common market to repay runners. Liquidation prices are depressed when many banks sell their assets at the same time. When banks are...

The paper develops a model of foreign direct investments (FDI) and foreign portfolio investments (FPI).The model describes an information-based trade off between direct investments and portfolio investments. Direct investors are more informed about the fundamentals of their projects. This...

We study how environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing reshapes information aggregation by prices. We develop a rational expectations equilibrium model in which traditional and green investors are informed about financial and ESG risks but have different preferences over them. Because...

The paper develops a model of foreign direct investments (FDI) and foreign portfolio investments (FPI). FDI is characterized by hands-on management style which enables the owner to obtain relatively refined information about the productivity of the firm. This superiority, relative to FPI, comes...

The paper develops a model of foreign direct investments (FDI) and foreign portfolio investments. FDI is characterized by hands-on management style which enables the owner to obtain relatively refined information about the productivity of the firm. This superiority, relative to portfolio...