Do regulations decrease dealer ability to intermediate trades? Using a unique data set of dealer-bond-level transactions, we link changes in liquidity of individual U.S. corporate bonds to dealers' transaction activity and balance sheet constraints. We show that, prior to the financial crisis,...

This paper studies the question of the economic scale of financial institutions. We show that banks actively smooth book equity by adjusting payouts to achieve a desired trajectory of book equity. The countercyclical nature of net payouts of financial institutions leads to procyclical book...

Do regulations decrease dealer ability to intermediate trades? Using a unique data set of dealer-bond-level transactions, we link changes in liquidity of individual U.S. corporate bonds to dealers’ transaction activity and balance sheet constraints. We show that, prior to the financial crisis,...

We construct risks around consensus forecasts of real GDP growth, unemployment, and inflation. We find that risks are time-varying, asymmetric, and partly predictable. Tight financial conditions forecast downside growth risk, upside unemployment risk, and increased uncertainty around the...

This paper examines market liquidity in the post-crisis era in light of concerns that regulatory changes might have reduced dealers' ability and willingness to make markets. We begin with a discussion of the broader trading environment, including an overview of regulations and their potential...

We document a highly significant, strongly nonlinear dependence of stock and bond returns on past equity market volatility as measured by the VIX. We propose a new estimator for the shape of the nonlinear forecasting relationship that exploits additional variation in the cross section of...

The financial crisis of 2007-9 has sparked keen interest in models of financial frictions and their impact on macro activity. Most models share the feature that borrowers suffer a contraction in the quantity of credit. However, the evidence suggests that although bank lending to firms declines...