This paper investigates the relationship between financial development and firm size. The model shows that the efficiency of the financial system, measured by the level of monitoring costs, affects the extent of risk sharing within an economy and through this channel the availability of external...

We study the relationship between net trade credit and firms' investment levels, focusing on financially distressed firms. First, we introduce a theoretical model to predict the role played by net trade credit as a coordination device differentiating firms by their degree of financial distress....

Americans are rapidly losing their pensions — replaced by savings plans disguised as retirement plans.Many sponsors view defined contribution (DC) plans as the best option for retaining some of the features of a pension plan without bearing all of the costs and risks of DB. This paper explores...

Collectively, Americans are woefully unprepared financially for retirement. This retirement problem actually reflects a collection of diverse issues. This paper identifies the most important ones: longevity; access; contributions; portability; behavioral mistakes; funded status; expenses; and...

In the wake of the events of September 2008, money market mutual funds have made significant changes to the way they invest. Those changes have been driven by business and investment needs as well as by substantial revisions to the regulatory framework in which funds operate. Yet, some...

This paper contains facts and introductory concepts on Asset and Liability Management, Funds Transfer Pricing Systems and Funding Costs. Banks, hedge funds and more generally finance companies engage in complex capital market activities that involve trading of instruments in derivative or cash...

We propose a quantitative model of lending standards with two reasons for inefficient credit: lenders' moral hazard from deposit insurance or government guarantees, and imperfect information about the persistence of asset price growth, which generates incorrect but rational beliefs in the...

This paper shows how network theory can improve our understanding of institutional investors' voting behavior and, more generally, their role in corporate governance. The standard idea is that institutional investors compete against each other on relative performance and hence might not cast...

The paper aims to investigate some significant critical issues of the national and international regulation of bank interest rate risk. Particularly, the paper examines the link between internal models and standardized models used by banks to provide financial information to banking authorities...

Interest rate risk is the exposure of a bank's financial condition to adverse movements in interest rates. Changes in interest rates affect a bank's earnings by changing its net interest income and also affect the underlying value of the bank's assets, liabilities and off-balance sheet...