We analyze the information content of the digital footprint - information that people leave online simply by accessing or registering on a website - for predicting consumer default. Using more than 250,000 observations, we show that even simple, easily accessible variables from the digital...

The paper models securities underwriting where the intermediaries (commercial banks and investment houses) have diverse conflicts of interest leading to differential pricing of securities. When underwriting securities, investment houses have an incentive to underinvest in costly information...

Banks are an important source of funding in economies all around the world, making it vital to understand how banks directly and indirectly affect funding through capital markets. Few issues have perhaps been as controversial as the appropriate scope of bank activities and whether banks should...

This paper examines the information content of the announcement of the sale of a borrower s loan by its bank. A large body of research has documented the positive impact on a firm s stock price around the announcement of formation and renewal of bank lending relationships. In light of these...

This paper examines the information content of the announcement of a sale of a borrower's loans by its lending bank. We find significant negative stock returns for the borrower on the loan sale announcement, particularly for sub-par loan sales, where the bank's information advantage is greatest....

“Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) is a key innovation in consumer finance in recent years. Using a randomized experiment at an e-commerce company, we document that – when BNPL is available – customers spend 20% more, with low-creditworthiness customers being most responsive to the introduction...

We provide a method to identify and classify payment firms and assess the effect of two innovations – cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) – on the payment industry. We find that payment firms’ stock returns are uncorrelated with proxies for the rise and fall of...

This paper examines recent evidence on the characteristics and pricing of debt securities underwritten by Section 20 subsidiaries of U.S. commercial bank holding companies relative to those underwritten by investment houses. Our results show that Section 20 underwritings of lower-credit rated...