Manipulation of hard information has been at the center of a wave of investigations into fraudulent bank behavior, such as mis-selling of mortgages and rigging of LIBOR and FX rates. Despite these prominent cases, little is known as to why employees manipulate hard information. Using almost a...

Poor loan quality is often attributed to loan officers exercising poor judgment. A potential solution is to base loans on hard information alone. However, we find other consequences of bypassing discretion stemming from loan officer incentives and limits of hard information verifiability. Using...

Poor loan quality is often attributed to loan officers exercising poor judgment. A potential solution is to base loans on hard information alone. However, we find other consequences of bypassing discretion stemming from loan officer incentives and limits of hard information verifiability. Using...

We hypothesize and find evidence that banks use venture investments in fintech startups as a strategic approach to navigate fintech competition. We show that banks' venture investments have increasingly focused on fintech firms in systematic ways. We find that banks facing greater fintech...