Publications (Ordered Chronologically)
The Life Cycle of Systemic Risk and Crises (With Allen N. Berger) - Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, Forthcoming.
The Role of Investor Sentiment in Bank Liquidity Creation (with Jin Cai and Michael Pagano) - Finance Research Letters, December 2023, 58(D), 104663.
Cross-Border Bank Flows and Systemic Risk (with Andrew Karolyi and Alvaro Taboada) - Review of Finance, September 2023, 27(5), 1563-1614.
Operational Risk Is More Systemic than You Think: Evidence from U.S. Bank Holding Companies (with Allen N. Berger, Filippo Curti, and Atanas Mihov) - Journal of Banking and Finance, October 2022, Volume 143, Article 106619.
Supervisory Enforcement Actions Against Banks and Systemic Risk (With Allen N. Berger, Jin Cai, and Raluca A. Roman) - Journal of Banking and Finance, July 2022, Volume 140, Article 106222.
Federal Reserve Intervention and Systemic Risk during Financial Crises - Journal of Banking and Finance, December 2021, Volume 133, Article 106210.
How did Retail Investors Respond to the COVID-19 Pandemic? The Effect of Robinhood Brokerage Customers on Market Quality (With Michael Pagano and Raisa Velthuis) - Finance Research Letters, November 2021, Volume 43, Article 101946.
The Granular Nature of Large Institutional Investors (With Itzhak Ben-David, Francesco A. Franzoni, and Rabih Moussawi) - Management Science, November 2021, Volume 63, Issue 11, 6629-7289. Featured Article (Blog Post).
Media Coverage: VoxEU; ProMarket; Forbes; CIO; Harvard Law School Forum; The Street; Financial Times
Small Banks and Consumer Satisfaction - Journal of Corporate Finance, February 2020, Volume 60, Article 101517.
Do Bank Bailouts Reduce or Increase Systemic Risk? The Effects of TARP on Financial System Stability (With Allen N. Berger and Raluca A. Roman) - Journal of Financial Intermediation, July 2020, Volume 43.
Governance Mechanisms and Effective Activism: Evidence from Shareholder Proposals on Poison Pills (With Mireia Gine and Rabih Moussawi) - Journal of Empirical Finance, September 2017, Volume 43, Pg. 185-202.
Bank Liquidity Creation and Real Economic Output (With Allen N. Berger) - Journal of Banking and Finance, August 2017, Volume 81, Pg. 1-19 (Lead Article)
Does Bank Technology Impact Small Business Lending Decisions? - Journal of Financial Research, Spring 2017, Volume 40 (1), Pg. 5-32 (Lead Article)
What Is The Systemic Risk of Financial Institutions? - Journal of Financial Stability, June 2016, Volume 24, 71-87
A Comprehensive Approach to Measuring the Relation between Systemic Risk Exposure and Sovereign Debt (With Michael Pagano) - Journal of Financial Stability, April 2016, Volume 23, Pg. 62-78
Working Papers
Abstract: We examine the spillover and direct effects of cross-border bank M&As on the systemic risk of banks in the target’s country. We document that higher cross-border bank M&A activity is associated with higher systemic risk for peer banks, while target banks exhibit a decrease in systemic risk post-merger. The effect is stronger for deals involving large acquirers from developed countries and from countries with weaker regulatory quality than the target’s country. Our data suggest that the channels for these effects are reductions in peer banks’ market value of equity and income diversity and an increase in market value of equity for target banks post-merger relative to the control group. Our findings show destabilizing effects of cross-border bank M&As that stem from improvements in the quality of the target banks that exert pressure on peer banks.
ETF Failures-to-Deliver: Naked Short-Selling or Operational Shorting? (With Richard B. Evans, Rabih Moussawi and Michael Pagano)
Abstract: Unlike common stocks, ETF failures-to-deliver (FTDs) remain high even after the implementation of SEC rules banning naked shorting and removing market maker exemptions for short sales. We find that ETF-related FTDs are growing at a disproportionately high rate in dollar volume. While the prior literature and SEC rule-making would point to a rise in naked short-selling as a possible explanation for this growth in FTDs, we identify an alternative cause related to the market making activities associated with the ETF creation/redemption process, which we label “operational shorting”. We propose a simple methodology to estimate operational shorting and show that our measure is consistent with the economics behind the mechanism. Examining the market implications of operational shorting, we find that it is associated with improved ETF liquidity but that it is also predictive of market wide indicators of systemic and counterparty risk. In exploring possible mechanisms for that predictive relationship, we find that there is commonality in operational shorting across ETFs with the same lead market maker/authorized participant, suggestive of an increase in counterparty risk.
Media coverage: WSJ; Yahoo! Finance
Abstract: Is bitcoin money? We study the characteristics of bitcoin in the context of its use as money, following the theory of money demand first posited by Keynes (1935). Specifically, we answer three questions. First, is bitcoin used as a transactional currency? Yes. Second, is bitcoin used as a speculative currency? Yes. Third, is bitcoin used in a precautionary sense? No, although there are some weak results in support of this motive. We find this evidence using data on bitcoin returns and volume from 2010-2016, using a principal components analysis framework, supplemented with tests that incorporate specific elements of each component.
The Real Effects of Elections on Firms' Growth Opportunities (With Matthew M. Wynter)
Abstract: Across a sample of 49 countries, we show that during the run-up to elections of top-level government officials across the world firms display strikingly negative cumulative abnormal stock returns. We treat these abnormal returns as a proxy for the market-implied impact of the election on firms’ growth opportunities. Using firms’ run-up CARs, we find that firms with growth opportunities that are susceptible to electoral uncertainty perform worse, hold less cash, and invest and hire less than their peers after the election. The findings strongly support theories that identify the political processes as an important factor in firms’ real behaviors.