Firms considered "too big to fail'' (TBTF) benefit from access to cheaper funding during crises. Using a comprehensive data set of bond characteristics and prices in the primary and secondary market for a sample of 74 U.S. financial institutions, we investigate how reduced debt capital costs...

With a rapidly aging population, Portugal faces some serious pension challenges including a Social Security system which is under pressure, and pension benefits gradually approaching levels that will require individuals to supplement Social Security with private savings. In addition, Portugal...

This chapter describes investment theory as the study of the individual behavior of households and economic organizations in the allocation of their resources to the available investment opportunities. For the purposes of investment theory, economic organizations are characterized as being...

Brazilian policy makers and researchers have discussed the introduction of a complementary pension system to complement the Regime Geral de Previdência Social (RGPS), specially for those that want a retirement income above the RGPS ceiling. This article first recommends that the complementary...

Guarantees of financial contracts, such as loans, deposit insurance, and swaps, pervade the financial system and play an important role in corporate and public finance. This paper develops a framework for analyzing the efficient management of such guarantees in both the private and public...

Firms considered \too big to fail" (TBTF) benefit from access to cheaper funding during crises. Using a comprehensive data set of bond characteristics and prices in the primary and secondary market for a sample of 74 U.S. - financial institutions, we investigate how reduced debt capital costs...

In this paper we use functional analysis to examine the pension benefit guarantee system in the United States. The functional perspective on financial policy making begins with the set offunctions required, and then looks for the optimal institutional structure to perform those functions. Our...

This paper proposes a functional approach to designing and managing the financial systems of countries, regions, firms, households, and other entities. It is a synthesis of the neoclassical, neo-institutional, and behavioral perspectives. Neoclassical theory is an ideal driver to link science...

Discussions of financial risk often fail to distinguish between risks that are consciously borne and those that are not. To understand the breeding conditions for financial crises the prime focus of concern should not be simply on large risk-taking per se, but on the unintended, or unanticipated...

During the last decade, derivatives markets became an asset class of their own and influenced the financial landscape strongly. While the financial sector contributes positively to overall economic growth in many studies up to the mid nineties, a positive contribution of the financial sector to...