We find consistent evidence of negative autocorrelation in decision-making that is unrelated to the merits of the cases considered in three separate high-stakes field settings: refugee asylum court decisions, loan application reviews, and major league baseball umpire pitch calls. The evidence is...

By using a uniquely compiled dataset, this study first examines whether Chinese banks exhibit the inter-temporal loan herding in industrial lending during 2006-2011. We decompose the inter-temporal correlation in lending into the own following and other following. Our results find that the...

This study examines whether Taiwanese banks engage in loan herding. Our loan herding denotes industrial lending by a sufficient number of banks during each half-year period of 2002-2011. We calculate inter-temporal correlation between lending over two consecutive periods and decompose the...

This paper investigates how interbank credit exposures affect financial stability. Policy makers often see such exposures as undermining stability by exacerbating cascading losses through the financial system. I develop a model that features a trade-off between cascading losses and risk-sharing....

In financial crises, the premium on liquid assets such as US Treasuries increases alongside credit spreads. This paper explains the link between the liquidity premium and spreads. We present a theory of endogenous bank fragility arising from a coordination friction among bank creditors. The...

Bank market power, both in the loan and deposit market, has important implications for credit provision and for financial stability. This article discusses these issues through the lens of a simple theoretical framework. On the asset side, banks choose the quality and quantity of loans. On the...

What determines risk-bearing capacity and the amount of leverage in financial markets? Using unique archival data on collateralized lending, we show that personal experience can affect individual risk-taking and aggregate leverage. When an investor syndicate speculating in Amsterdam in 1772 went...

By analyzing 20 developed countries over 1920–2012, we find the following evidence of overoptimism and neglect of crash risk by bank equity investors during credit expansions: 1) bank credit expansion predicts increased bank equity crash risk, but despite the elevated crash risk, also predicts...

Corporate credit lines are drawn more heavily when funding markets are more stressed. This covariance elevates expected bank funding costs. We show that credit supply is dampened by the associated debtoverhang cost to bank shareholders. Until 2022, this impact was reduced by linking the interest...