This is the first of two notes that empirically document the behavior of U.S. Primary Dealers during the 2007-08 financial crisis. In this note we show that dealers' exposure to risky assets drives the observed repo funding squeeze; moreover, as evident from Lehman's experience, we show that...

State and local governments are attractive cybercrime targets because of inadequate cybersecurity and ample access to sensitive information. We show that external data breaches translate to higher financing costs for governments including negative abnormal bond returns in the secondary market...

This paper documents the link between finance and informal competition. Using longitudinal firm-level data, we show that formal firms that are more exposed to the competition of informal firms are less likely to apply for a bank loan. This result is not due to sample selection, omitted variable...

The lack of information is a relevant obstacle to the export activity of small and medium enterprises. This paper analyzes whether banks can support firms’ export by reducing informational asymmetries about foreign markets. We exploit a large sample of Italian firms for which we merge custom...

We estimate the labor market power of over 13,000 manufacturing establishments across 82 low and middle-income countries around the world. Within local labor markets, larger and more productive firms have higher wage markdowns and pay lower wages. Labor market power across countries exhibits a...

We estimate the labor market power of over 13,000 manufacturing establishments across 82 low and middle-income countries around the world. Within local labor markets, larger and more productive firms have higher wage markdowns and pay lower wages. Labor market power across countries exhibits a...