Knowledge that Transforms

This paper studies a search-based model of OTC markets in which clients with heterogeneous trading needs direct their trades to one of ex-ante identical dealers. The main insight of the paper is that the way clients sort across dealers shapes dealer-to-dealer trading patterns and, in turn, generates a core–periphery interdealer network structure. Dealers in the model become heterogeneous because they attract different clients in equilibrium. Some dealers attract clients who trade frequently (e.g., index funds); others attract clients with infrequent trading needs (e.g., pension funds). Dealers attracting clients with frequent trading needs receive a larger volume of client orders, trade more with other dealers, and, as a result, form the core of the interdealer network. Conversely, dealers specializing in clients with infrequent trading needs form the periphery. I also show that accounting for client heterogeneity across dealers (a) challenges standard measurements and interpretations of bid–ask spreads and (b) generates predictions on bid–ask spreads and dealer centrality consistent with the empirical literature.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act unlocked as much as $1.7 trillion of U.S. multinationals’ foreign cash. We examine the real and financial response to this liquidity shock and find that firms did not increase capital expenditures, employment, R&D, or M&A, regardless of financial constraints. On the financial side, firms paid out only about one-third of the new liquidity to shareholders and retained half as cash. This high retention was not associated with poor governance. The high propensity to retain the liquidity shock as cash, even among well-governed firms with limited financial constraints, is difficult to reconcile with existing theory.

We document large racial disparities in the ability of homeowners to access their accumulated housing wealth. Minority homeowners are significantly more likely to have their mortgage equity withdrawal (MEW) product applications rejected than White homeowners, and the unconditional disparities are significantly larger than those found in prior studies that focused on purchase and rate/term refinance loans. Had Black homeowners faced the same MEW denial rate as White homeowners in our sample period we show they would have extracted an additional $11.2 billion in housing equity, or almost 25% of the total amount of actual equity extracted. Controlling for key underwriting variables significantly narrows the racial disparities, with the Black–White gap falling by nearly 85%, and the Hispanic-White gap falling by more than 75%. Credit scores and debt-to-income ratios are the most important factors explaining the gaps, while differences in loan-to-value ratios contribute only modestly. “Residual” disparities after conditioning on observable underwriting factors are large and vary significantly across lenders. A battery of tests suggests that differences in unobserved underwriting factors are unlikely to fully explain the residual disparities, which tend to be larger in geographic areas characterized by more racial animus.

Do federal tax incentives for banks investing in municipal bonds support local governments during recessions? This paper exploits a change in tax benefits for banks purchasing municipal bonds and finds that expanding access to bank financing during recessions increases local governments’ debt issuance and employment growth. The estimated job multiplier is 22 jobs per million dollars of spending. There is moderate evidence of mortgage loans being crowded out by banks’ increased holdings of municipal bonds.

Fluctuations in investor demand significantly affect firms’ valuation and access to capital. To quantify their real effects, we develop a dynamic investment model, incorporating both the demand and supply sides of capital. Strong investor demand relaxes financial constraints and facilitates equity issuance and investment, while weak demand encourages opportunistic share repurchases, crowding out investment. We estimate the model using indirect inference, matching the endogenous relationship between investor demand and firm policies. Our estimation reveals that demand fluctuations are important drivers of firm-level investment and economy-wide capital misallocation, accounting for 26.9% of dispersion in MPK and 23.4% of productivity losses.

We assess how nine different categories of market participants trade relative to a comprehensive forecasted-return variable based on 193 predictors. Firms and short sellers tend to be the smart money—both sell stocks with low-forecasted returns, and their trades predict returns in the intended direction. Retail investors trade against forecasted returns. Retail investors’ and institutions’ trades predict returns opposite to the intended direction. This poor trading performance is driven by trades in stocks with either high- or low-forecasted returns. The forecasted-return variable predicts returns more strongly in stocks with more intense retail trading, consistent with retail investors exacerbating mispricing.

We demonstrate that off-exchange (wholesaler) executions provide significant cost savings to retail investors. Wholesaler concentration has raised regulatory concerns; however, we show that the largest wholesalers offer the lowest costs due to economies of scale. The entry of a new large wholesaler reduces incumbent scale economies, resulting in higher execution costs. Most retail brokers route to multiple wholesalers and actively monitor their performance, rewarding those offering lower execution costs with more volume. While retail investors benefit from the current landscape across all stocks, those trading small stocks benefit the most.

“Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) is a key innovation in consumer payments. It bundles the sale of a product with a subsidized loan, effectively offering lower prices to low-creditworthiness customers. BNPL thereby allows merchants to price-discriminate among customers with different willingness-to-pay. Consistent with a price-discrimination mechanism, we show that BNPL increases sales by 20%, driven by low-creditworthiness customers and products where market power is larger. We find that the benefits of offering BNPL significantly outweigh the costs for the merchant. Our findings help to explain the surge in popularity of BNPL in e-commerce around the world.

Using cross-country and German administrative data on robotization, we show that the impact of robots on firms and labor markets is limited. First, investment in robots is small and highly concentrated in a few industries, representing less than 0.3% of aggregate expenditures on equipment. Second, robotization does not grow as rapidly as Information Technology did in the past, and current growth is driven by gains in developing countries. Third, firms invest in robots when they face difficulties in finding workers and subsequently increase employment after the investment. The total employment effect in exposed industries and regions is negative but modest in magnitude. We discuss why the effects of robots are limited and demonstrate that other digital technologies have more potential for large economic impact.

Platform intermediation of goods and services has considerably transformed the U.S. economy. We use administrative data on U.S. tax returns to study the role of the gig economy on entrepreneurship. We find that gig workers are more likely to become entrepreneurs, particularly those who are lower income, younger, and benefit from flexibility. We track all newly created firms and show that gig workers start firms in similar industries as their gig experience, which are less likely to survive and demonstrate higher performance. Overall, our findings suggest on-the-job learning promotes entrepreneurial entry and shifts the types of firms started by entrepreneurs.