Knowledge that Transforms

ABSTRACT We infer risk‐free rates from index option prices to estimate safe asset convenience yields in 10 G11 currencies. Countries' convenience yields increase with the level of their interest rates, with U.S. convenience yields fifth largest. During financial crises, convenience yields grow, but the difference between United States and foreign convenience yields generally does not. Covered interest parity (CIP) deviations using our option‐implied rates are a similar size between the United States and each other country. A model in which convenience yields depend on domestic financial intermediaries, but CIP deviations reflect the funding costs of international arbitrageurs financed with dollar‐denominated debt, explains these results.

ABSTRACT We examine how digital disruption affects bank competition using the staggered rollout of 3G mobile networks. 3G expansion increased mobile banking adoption among tech‐savvy households, reducing branch networks—especially in younger counties. Banks' strategies diverged: Less branch‐reliant banks closed branches and competed on price, while more branch‐reliant banks maintained branches but raised spreads. A structural model shows that perceived digital service improvements among younger consumers drove these shifts, reducing welfare for older savers. Counterfactuals demonstrate that subsidizing adoption for older savers can cost‐effectively reduce these disparities, facilitating a smoother digital transition.

ABSTRACT We find that long‐term institutional investors tilt their portfolios toward firms with better Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) profiles, in the cross sections of both institutional investor portfolios and the ownership of firms. We test whether several theoretically motivated mechanisms can explain this relationship. Our results that long‐term investors exhibit patience with firms around poor earnings announcements, but quickly sell portfolio firms after negative ES incidents, support the view that long‐ and short‐term investors evaluate information differently. Our evidence shows that limits‐to‐arbitrage play a role, as we find that investors' ESG tilt weakens following regulatory shocks that shorten their horizon.

ABSTRACT The deposit franchise is valuable because banks pay below‐market deposit rates. However, if depositors leave, its value vanishes. This can trigger runs by uninsured depositors, even if banks hold fully liquid assets. Because the franchise value increases with interest rates, runs are more harmful, and hence likelier, when rates are high. Banks can deter runs by shortening asset duration, but this risks insolvency if rates fall. Avoiding both runs and insolvency requires capital covering the potential loss of the uninsured deposit franchise. We estimate deposit franchise values and use them to identify vulnerable banks during the 2023 regional bank crisis.

ABSTRACT Real‐world contracts are typically private, observed only by their direct signatories, so agents working together are vulnerable to the principal opportunistically reducing other agents' incentives. The principal can mitigate this commitment problem by giving the most skilled agent a budget and delegating authority to write other agents' contracts. This endogenous hierarchy, never optimal with public contracts, raises effort, output, and compensation but allows rent extraction. The principal prefers it when contracts are opaque enough, skill is sufficiently heterogeneous across agents, and joint output is sensitive enough to effort. Our model provides novel predictions for the structure of banking syndicates.

ABSTRACT We study supply‐and‐demand effects in the U.S. Treasury bill market by comparing the returns on T‐bills to the policy rate on the Federal Reserve's reverse repurchase (RRP) facility. We develop and test a simple model where the RRP‐bill spread is policed both by heterogeneously elastic money funds and by corporate treasurers who derive collateral benefits from holding T‐bills. In response to shifts in T‐bill supply, money funds act as front‐line arbitrageurs. However, when T‐bills become extremely scarce, less elastic corporate treasurers become the marginal investors and supply shifts have a larger effect on T‐bill rates.