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Why did banks experience massive deposit inflows during the first months of the pandemic? Using weekly branch-level data on interest rates and county-level data on COVID-19 cases, we discover that interest rates at bank branches in counties with higher COVID-19 infection rates fell by more than rates at other branches—even branches of the same bank in different counties. When differentiating weeks by the degree of stock market distress and counties by the likely impact of COVID-19 cases on economic anxiety, the evidence suggests that the deposit inflows were triggered by a surge in the supply of precautionary savings.

Theory offers differing perspectives and predictions about the impact of product market competition on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using firm-level data on CSR from 2002 through 2015 and panel data on competition laws in 48 countries, we discover that intensifying competition induces firms to increase CSR activities. Analyses indicate that (a) intensifying competition spurs firms to invest more in CSR as a strategy for strengthening relationships with workers, suppliers, and customers and (b) the competition-CSR effect is stronger in economies where social norms prioritize CSR-type activities, e.g., treating others fairly, satisfying implicit agreements, protecting the environment, etc. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

England's financial revolution in the eighteenth century has long been hailed as a key contributor to the world's first Industrial Revolution. Later, in the nineteenth century, roles change in standard narratives – finance turns from hero into villain, with Victorian economic “failure” a result of excessive financial development. This survey argues for the exact opposite. England's financial revolution was strictly limited to public finance, enabling an explosion of public borrowing that stifled economic activity in the century up to 1815. It was only afterwards that finance began to fulfill its promise, enabling the country's rise to become the undisputed workshop of the world by the 1850s. Finally, there is no evidence of Victorian failure through excessive capital exports. In sum, the English case eloquently demonstrates the risks of financial repression – and the vast benefits from repealing outdated rules and regulations.

This paper studies whether there is a connection between finance and growth at the firm level. It employs a new dataset of 150,165 equity and bond issuances around the world, matched with income and balance sheet data for 62,653 listed firms in 65 countries over 1990-2016. Three main patterns emerge from the analyses. First, firms that choose to issue in capital markets use the funds raised to grow by enhancing their productive capabilities, increasing their tangible and intangible capital and the number of employees. Growth accelerates as firms raise funds. Second, the faster growth is more pronounced among firms that are more likely to face tighter financing constraints, namely, small, young, and high-R&D firms. Third, capital market issuances are associated with faster growth among firms located in countries with more developed capital markets relative to banks. Capital markets are also comparatively effective at allowing financially constrained firms to raise capital.

We assess whether restrictions on insider trading accelerate or slow technological innovation. Using over 80,000 industry-country-year observations across 74 economies from 1976 to 2006, we...

In light of the human suffering and economic costs associated with mental illness, we provide the first assessment of whether local credit conditions shape the incidence of mental depression. Using several empirical strategies, we discover that bank regulatory reforms that improved local credit conditions reduced mental depression among low-income households and the impact was largest in counties dominated by bank-dependent firms. On the mechanisms, we find that the regulatory reforms boosted employment, income, and mental health among low-income individuals in bank-dependent counties, but the regulatory reforms did not increase borrowing by these individuals.

Using a unique dataset on gaming and credit cards, we discover that default rates are higher among individuals who spend more, more frequently, and more erratically on video games, and among those who have more and more diverse games on their mobile devices. These results are less pronounced when spending occurs on weekends or bad weather days and more pronounced among overnight spenders. The findings are not driven by financial literacy or specific game types. Furthermore, intense gamers increase luxury, addictive, and impulsive expenditures more after receiving credit cards. Models of self-control offer a consistent explanation of our findings.

We investigate how communication within banks affects small business lending. Using travel time between a bank’s headquarters and its branches to proxy for the costs of communicating soft information, we exploit shocks to these travel times to evaluate the impact of within bank communication costs on small business loans. Consistent with Stein’s (2002) model of the transmission of soft information across a bank’s hierarchies, we find that reducing headquarters-branch travel time boosts small business lending in the branch’s county. Several extensions suggest that new airline routes facilitate the transmission of soft information, boosting small firm lending.

Does the pre-deal geographic overlap of the branches of two banks affect the probability that they merge, post-announcement stock returns, and post-merger performance? We compile information on U.S. bank acquisitions from 1984 through 2016, construct several measures of network overlap, and design and implement a new identification strategy. We find that greater pre-deal network overlap (1) increases the likelihood that two banks merge, (2) boosts the cumulative abnormal returns of the acquirer, target, and combined banks, and (3) reduces employment, boosts revenues, reduces the number of branches, improves loan quality, and expedites executive turnover.

We study the effects of ability and liquidity constraints on entrepreneurship. We develop a three sector Roy model that differentiates between entrepreneurs and other self-employed to address puzzling gaps that have emerged between theory and evidence on entry into entrepreneurship. The model predicts—and the data confirm—that entrepreneurs are positively selected on highlyremunerated cognitive and non-cognitive human capital skills, but other self-employed are negatively selected on those same abilities; entrepreneurs are positively selected on collateral, but other selfemployed are not; and entrepreneurship is procyclical, but self-employment is countercyclical.

We develop a new identification strategy to evaluate the impact of the geographic expansion of a bank holding company (BHC) across US metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) on BHC risk. For the average BHC, the instrumental variable results suggest that geographic expansion materially reduces risk. Geographic diversification does not affect loan quality. The results are consistent with arguments that geographic expansion lowers risk by reducing exposure to idiosyncratic local risks and inconsistent with arguments that expansion, on net, increases risk by reducing the ability of BHCs to monitor loans and manage risks.

Do stock markets act as a spare tire during banking crises, providing an alternative corporate financing channel and mitigating the economic severity of these crises? Using firm-level data in 36 countries from 1990 through 2011, we find that the adverse consequences of banking crises on equity issuances, firm profitability, employment, and investment efficiency are smaller in countries with stronger shareholder protection laws. These findings are not explained by the development of stock markets or financial institutions prior to the crises, the severity of the banking crisis, or overall economic, legal, and institutional development.

Although research shows that competitive banks spur corporate growth, less is known about the impact of bank competition on corporate risk. Using a sample of more than 70,000 firm-year observations covering the period from 1975 through 1994, we find that deregulation that intensified competition among banks materially reduced corporate risk, especially among firms that rely heavily on bank finance. We find that competition-enhancing bank deregulation reduced corporate volatility by easing credit constraints when firms experience adverse shocks and reducing the procyclicality of borrowing.

We study the impact of pollution on the migration of high human capital employees. We link data on the opening of toxic-emitting plants with the career paths of executives at S&P 1500 firms. We discover that toxic-emitting plant openings increase executive departures from neighboring firms with adverse effects on stock prices. The results: are larger when polluting plants and firms are geographically closer, hold only for executives physically-based at treated firms, hold only for the opening of polluting plants, do not reflect other local factors or prior stock price performance, and are larger among executives with more general human capital.

We evaluate the impact of the credit conditions facing corporations on their emissions of toxic air pollutants. Exploiting cross-county, cross-time shale discoveries that generated liquidity windfalls at local bank branches, we construct measures of (1) the degree to which banks in non-shale counties, i.e., counties where shale was not discovered, receive liquidity shocks through their branches in shale counties and (2) the degree to which a corporation in a non-shale county has a relationship lender that receives liquidity shocks through its branches. From both the county- and firm-level analyses, we discover that positive shocks to credit conditions reduce corporate pollution.

We study the impact of toxic emissions on the migration of corporate executives. We link data on the opening of industrial plants emitting toxic air pollutants with information on the career paths of executives at all S&P 1500 firms over the 1996-2014 period. We find that (1) the opening of toxic emitting plants increases the rate at which executives leave geographically close firms and move to firms in less polluted areas, (2) stock returns fall when these “treated” executives announce their departures, and (3) the replacement executives have less experience than the departing executives.

Given the importance of transparency for the governance, efficiency, and stability of banks, we evaluate whether economic shocks that relax a bank’s dependence on external capital markets alter the cost-benefit calculations of bank managers concerning voluntary information disclosure. We measure information disclosure based on 10-K filings, 8-K filings, earnings guidance, and stock market liquidity. As a funding shock, we use unanticipated technological innovations that triggered shale development and deposit booms. Greater exposure to shale development reduced information disclosure, suggesting that deposit windfalls relax the incentives for managers to disclose information to attract funds.

International audience; For at least 5000 years, people have created, modified and used financial instruments, markets and intermediaries. Whether it was the use of money and debt to facilitate specialization and investment in Babylonia in 3000 BC (Van de Mieroop, 2005), the creation of market-traded securities in ancient Rome to mobilize capital for immense minig projets (Rostovotzeff, 1957; Malmendier, 2005).

A large theoretical literature asserts that standard-essential patents (SEPs) allow their owners to “hold up” innovation by charging fees that exceed their incremental contribution to a final product. We evaluate two central, interrelated predictions of this SEP holdup hypothesis: (1) SEP-reliant industries should experience more stagnant quality-adjusted prices than non-SEP-reliant industries; and (2) court decisions that reduce the excessive power of SEP holders should accelerate innovation in SEP-reliant industries. We find no empirical support for either prediction. Indeed, SEP-reliant industries have the fastest quality-adjusted price declines in the U.S. economy.

Is financial innovation necessary for sustaining economic growth? To address this question, we build a Schumpeterian model in which entrepreneurs earn profits by inventing better goods and profit-maximizing financiers arise to screen entrepreneurs. The model has two novel features. First, financiers engage in the costly but potentially profitable process of innovation: they can invent better methods for screening entrepreneurs. Second, every screening process becomes less effective as technology advances. The model predicts that technological innovation and economic growth eventually stop unless financiers innovate. Empirical evidence is consistent with this dynamic, synergistic model of financial and technological innovation.

Does the pre-deal geographic overlap of the subsidiaries and branches of two banks affect the probability that they merge and post-merger value creation and synergies? We compile comprehensive information on U.S. bank acquisitions from 1986 through 2014, construct several measures of network overlap, and design and implement a new identification strategy. We find that greater pre-deal network overlap (1) increases the likelihood that two banks merge, (2) boosts the cumulative abnormal returns of the acquirer, target, and combined banks, and (3) is associated with larger labor cost reductions, managerial turnover, loan quality improvements, and revenue enhancements at target banks.

We evaluate the impact of the African slave trade between 1400 and 1900 on modern household finance. Exploiting cross-country and cross-ethnic group differences in the intensity with which people were enslaved and exported from Africa, we find that slave exports during the 1400-1900 period are negatively associated with current measures of household (a) access to financial services, (b) access to credit, (c) use of mobile finance, and (d) trust in financial institutions, suggesting that the slave trade has had an enduring, deleterious effect on household finance.

Although policymakers often discuss tradeoffs between competition and stability, past research provides differing theoretical perspectives and conflicting empirical results on whether competition destabilizes banks. In this paper, we employ a new approach for identifying exogenous changes in the competitive pressures facing individual banks and use this approach to assess the impact of competition on bank risk. We discover that an intensification of bank competition materially boosts bank risk. We also find suggestive evidence that this positive relationship is driven by reduced bank profit margins, lowered bank charter value, provision of nontraditional services, and diminished relationship lending.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss and provide new data and measures of bank regulatory and supervisory policies in 180 countries from 1999 to 2011.Design/methodology/approachThe authors' approach is based upon the quantification of hundreds of questions, including information on permissible bank activities, capital requirements, the powers of official supervisory agencies, information disclosure requirements, external governance mechanisms, deposit insurance, barriers to entry, and loan provisioning, to form indices of key bank regulatory and supervisory policies.FindingsIt is found that the regulation and supervision of banks varies widely across countries in many different dimensions. Furthermore, there has not been a convergence in bank regulatory regimes over the past decade despite the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression.Research limitations/implicationsThe data are based on survey responses and this requires that the answers be accurate. To better ensure this is the case, several checks were made to ensure greater accuracy in all the answers. Using this database one can perform various statistical analyses in attempt to determine which bank regulatory regimes work best to promote well‐functioning banking systems.Originality/valueThe authors' data and measures are new and unique so as enable policy makers and researchers to examine cross‐country comparisons and analyses of changes in banking policies over time.

We use the cross-state, cross-time variation in bank deregulation across the U.S. states to assess how improvements in banking systems affected the labor market opportunities of black workers. Bank deregulation from the 1970s through the 1990s improved bank efficiency, lowered entry barriers facing nonfinancial firms, and intensified competition for labor throughout the economy. Consistent with Becker’s (1957) seminal theory of racial discrimination, we find that deregulation-induced improvements in the banking system boosted blacks’relative wages by facilitating the entry of new firms and reducing the manifestation of racial prejudices in labor markets.

This paper assesses the impact of the geographic diversification of bank holding company (BHC) assets across the United States on their market valuations. Using two new identification strategies based on the dynamic process of interstate bank deregulation, we find that exogenous increases in geographic diversity reduced BHC valuations. We also find that the geographic diversification of BHC assets increased insider lending and reduced loan quality. Taken together, these findings are consistent with theories predicting that geographic diversity intensifies agency problems. The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com., Oxford University Press.

We use a new identification strategy to assess whether an intensification of competition among banks increases or decreases the provision of a key banking service: liquidity creation. Although theory offers conflicting predictions about the impact of competition on liquidity creation, we find that regulatory-induced competition reduces liquidity creation. Consistent with a subset of models emphasizing that banks pushed toward insolvency reduce risk-taking activities, we discover that regulatory-induced competition reduces liquidity creation more among banks with less risk-absorbing capacity (e.g., less profitable banks).

We use a new identification strategy to assess whether an intensification of competition among banks increases or decreases liquidity creation, which is a vital service that banks provide to the economy. We create a measure of the time-varying exposure of each bank in the United States to competition from banks headquartered in other states, as states lowered regulatory barriers to competition in the 1980s and 1990s. We find that regulatory-induced competition reduced liquidity creation. Consistent with specific theoretical models, we also find that these liquidity-destroying effects are smaller among more profitable banks and larger among smaller banks.

How many and which firms issue equity and bonds in domestic and international markets, how do these firms grow relative to non-issuing firms, and how does firm performance vary along the firm size distribution (FSD)? To evaluate these questions, we construct a new dataset by matching data on firm-level capital raising activity with balance sheet data for 45,527 listed firms in 51 countries. Three main patterns emerge from the analysis. (1) Only a few large firms issue equity or bonds, and among them a small subset has raised a large proportion of the funds raised during the 1990s and 2000s. (2) Issuers grow faster than non-issuers in terms of assets, sales, and employment, that is, firms do not simply use securities markets to adjust their financial accounts. (3) The FSD of issuers evolves differently from that of non-issuers, tightening among issuers and widening among non-issuers.

Are firms more resilient to systemic banking crises in economies with higher levels of social trust? Using firm-level data in 34 countries from 1990 through 2011, we find that liquidity-dependent firms in high-trust countries obtain more trade credit and suffer smaller drops in profits and employment during banking crises than similar firms in low-trust economies. The results are consistent with the view that when banking crises block the normal banking-lending channel, greater social trust facilitates access to informal finance, cushioning the effects of these crises on corporate profits and employment.

There was a systemic failure of financial regulation: Senior policymakers repeatedly enacted and implemented policies that destabilized the global financial system, and the authorities maintained these policies even as they learned about the deleterious consequences of their policies during the decade before the crisis. The absence of an informed, expertly staffed, and independent institution that evaluates financial regulation from the public’s perspective is a critical defect in the governance of financial regulation ‐ the system associated with selecting, enforcing, and reforming financial policies. I propose a new institution to address this defect. I. INTRODUCTION This paper’s first objective is to document that systemic weaknesses with the governance of financial regulation ‐ the system associated with designing, implementing, and reforming financial policies ‐ contributed to the global financial crisis. Senior officials repeatedly designed, implemented, and most importantly, maintained policies that destabilized financial markets. Regulators maintained these policies even when they learned that their policies were increasing financial system fragility. Moreover, the authorities acquired this information during the decade before the crisis, when they had ample time and power to adjust their policies under relatively calm conditions. Nonetheless

Purpose – The purpose of this postmortem is to assess whether the design, implementation, and maintenance of financial policies during the period from 1996 through 2006 were primary causes of the financial system's demise.Design/methodology/approach – To draw conclusions about the policy determinants of the crisis, the paper studies five important policies: Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) policies toward credit rating agencies, Federal Reserve policies concerning bank capital and credit default swaps, SEC and Federal Reserve policies about over‐the‐counter derivatives, SEC policies toward the consolidated supervision of major investment banks, and government policies toward two housing‐finance entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.Findings – The evidence is inconsistent with the view that the collapse of the financial system was caused only by the popping of the housing bubble (“accident”) and the herding behavior of financiers rushing to create and market increasingly complex and questionable fin...