Lending Platforms’ Information Aggregation under Competition I examine how lending platforms use their information advantage to deter adverse selection in their competition for creditworthy borrowers. Using data from peer-to-peer lending platforms and a platform entry event which exogenously in-duces platform competition for both borrowers and lenders, I find that the Read more…

Multi-Class Shares Around the World: The Role of Institutional Investors Jinhee Kim       Pedro Matos*        Ting Xu November 2018 Abstract This paper examines multi-class share structures around the world. Using a comprehensive sample of publicly listed firms in 45 countries over the period 2001–2016, we find that institutional investors exhibit strong Read more…

Technological Disruptiveness and the Evolution of IPOs and Sell-Outs Donald Bowen, Laurent Fresard, and Gerard Hoberg September 19, 2018 ABSTRACT We show that the recent decline in IPOs in U.S. markets is explained by changes in the technological disruptiveness of startups, which we measure using textual analysis of patents from Read more…

Eliminating Systemic Risk in Financial Markets Stefan Thurner Systemic risk in financial markets arises—to an important extent—from the interconnectedness of agents via financial contracts. We show that the systemic risk level of every player in a financial system can be quantified by simple network measures. Using central bank data from Read more…

The Importance of Climate Risks for Institutional Investors According to our survey regarding climate-risk perceptions, institutional investors believe these risks have financial implications for their portfolio firms and that the risks have already begun to materialize, particularly regulatory risks. Many of the investors, especially the long-term, larger and ESG-oriented investors, Read more…

Capital Commitment and Investment Decisions: The Role of Mutual Fund Charges Mutual  fund managers, we argue, extract valuable information from the investors' choice among different load share-classes regarding their investment horizon.   We find that the lack of explicit capital in share classes  without entry or exit loads affects fund-trading horizon, Read more…

Hedge Fund Hold’em We find that hedge fund managers who do well in poker tournaments have significantly better fund performance. This effect is stronger for tournaments with more entrants, larger buy-ins, larger cash prizes and for managers who win multiple tournaments, suggesting poker skills are correlated with fund management skills. Read more…

Friends with Bankruptcy Protection Benefits We evaluate whether social networks limit the effectiveness of targeted debt relief programs.  In our setting, individuals learn about the likelihood of debt relief from the recent experiences of workplace peers who file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy. While peers granted bankruptcy are able to discharge Read more…