Emerging market corporations have significantly increased their borrowing in international markets since 2008. We show that this increase was driven by large-denomination bond issuances, most of them with face value of exactly US$500 million. Large issuances are eligible for inclusion in...

We use issuance-level data to study how equity capital inflows that enter emerging market economies affect equity issuance and corporate investment. We show that foreign inflows are strongly correlated with country-level issuance. The relation reflects the behavior of large issuers issuing in...

We demonstrate the central importance of creditors' ability to use "movable" assets as collateral (as distinct from "immovable" real estate) when borrowing from banks. Using a unique cross-country micro-level loan dataset containing loan-to-value ratios for different assets, we find that...

We study the distribution of credit during crisis times and its impact on firm indebtedness and macroeconomic risk. Whereas policies can help firms in need of financing, they can lead to adverse selection from riskier firms and higher default risk. We analyze a large-scale program of public...

Recent reforms across Eastern European countries gave more flexibility and information for parties to engage in secured debt transactions. The menu of assets legally accepted as collateral was enlarged to include movable assets (e.g., machinery and equipment). Generalized...

Bank failures during banking crises, in theory, can result either from unwarranted depositor withdrawals during events characterized by contagion or panic, or as the result of fundamental bank insolvency. Various views of contagion are described and compared to historical evidence from banking...

The discount window has been under attack recently as a costly and unnecessary tool of policy. This paper argues that the primary role of the discount window should be to provide occasional, temporary support to particular financial markets during localized financial crises. The benefits of the...

Limitations on bank consolidation and branching in the United States at an early date effectively limited the scope of commercial banks and their involvement in financing large-scale industry, and increased information and transaction costs of issuing securities. In contrast, German industry was...

This paper begins by developing a framework for price and interest rate determination under suspension of convertibility during the national banking period. The model is applied to interpret unanticipated price level shocks and expected deflation during the period of green back inconvertibility(...

The merger of Fleet and BankBoston in September 1999 resulted in a regional New England lending market in which only one large, universal bank remained. We explore the extent to which that merger resulted in monopoly rents for the combined entity in some niches within the regional loan market....