Using U.S. census survey data on CEOs’ residence in their formative years, I document a negative relation between CEOs’ endowed family wealth and managerial performance. Consistent with the view that CEOs born into low-income families face higher entry barriers but may possess greater levels of ability that enable them to become CEOs, I find that CEOs born into less privileged families outperform those from higher-wealth families. The outperformance of CEOs from less wealthy families is not driven by risk taking or omitted variables. Overall, my results suggest that CEOs’ social endowment provides a useful signal for their managerial ability.

Previous studies of macroeconomic accounting have focused on the conceptual and political development of national accounts and how such theoretical concepts generate economic reality. By turning focus to the calculative practices of macroeconomic accounting, studying the Norwegian Quarterly National Accounts (QNA), the present work underlines that the national economy is not only constituted in the political discourse of growth and within international classifications, but also within the everyday processes of calculating the numbers. It shows how the QNA team struggles to adhere to the formal classifications and find reliable empirical accounts that matches them. In such situations, epistemic strategies are employed to handle the “gaps” and misalignments between the formal classifications and the everyday calculative practice. By theorizing the validation and support of weak numbers within a calculative culture shaped by the handling of second-order measurements and interrupted representations, the present study contributes to an emerging accounting literature on interrupted and hyperreal representations.

In a natural experiment among former colonies between 1970 and 1999, weak institutions reflected in high settler mortality and French legal origin often increase the likelihood and intensity of local currency and real crises (i.e., those resulting in a drop in real output) amid six global crises. The effects of institutions on crises are often mediated through macroeconomic policies, but they are often not primary channels. Persistent institutions (i.e., those reflected in the legal origins and settler mortality) predict the occurrence and intensity of crises better than time-varying institutions do.

Most extant structural credit risk models underestimate credit spreads—a shortcoming known as the credit spread puzzle. We consider a model with priced stochastic asset risk that is able to fit medium‐ to long‐term spreads. The model, augmented by jumps to help explain short‐term spreads, is estimated on firm‐level data and identifies significant asset variance risk premia. An important feature of the model is the significant time variation in risk premia induced by the uncertainty about asset risk. Various extensions are considered, among them optimal leverage and endogenous default.

Entry is widely discussed but rarely subjected to empirical study. This study develops a competitive theory of entry, with primary focus on the relationship between entry and industry growth. The main ingredients are adjustment costs to firms already in the industry and the distribution of fixed entry cost to potential entrants. The theory suggests sufficient conditions under which the entry rate is an increasing, convex function of the industry growth rate. A regression model correcting for severe heteroscedasticity is applied to data from Swedish manufacturing industries. The results are consistent with the theoretical prediction for growth and other key variables expected to influence entry significantly.

Entry is widely discussed but rarely subjected to empirical study. This study develops a competitive theory of entry, with primary focus on the relationship between entry and industry growth. The main ingredients are adjustment costs to firms already in the industry and the distribution of fixed entry cost to potential entrants. The theory suggests sufficient conditions under which the entry rate is an increasing, convex function of the industry growth rate. A regression model correcting for severe heteroscedasticity is applied to data from Swedish manufacturing industries. The results are consistent with the theoretical prediction for growth and other key variables expected to influence entry significantly.

The extant literature suggests that one of the main causes of the recent financial crisis was the excessive use of short-term debt by banks. Using a large sample of banks, we find that increases in repurchase agreements (repos) were recognized by external capital markets to increase bank risk in the pre-crisis period. In the crisis, we find a negative relationship between repos and risk. We attribute this result to evidence suggesting that “good” banks were able to continue funding their repos, whereas “bad” banks had to significantly decrease their repo funding.

We provide a comprehensive account of the evolution of the currency composition of sovereign and corporate external borrowing by emerging markets from 2003 to 2017. We show that a higher reliance on foreign currency debt by the corporate sector is associated with higher sovereign default risk. We introduce local currency sovereign debt and private sector currency mismatch into a standard sovereign debt model to examine how the currency composition of corporate borrowing affects the sovereign’s incentive to inflate or default. A calibration of the model generates the empirical patterns of sovereign credit risk.

Between 2010 and 2020, the U.S. coal industry experienced a 50% drop in production, employment, and active mines, driven by regulatory factors and technological innovation in alternative energy sources. We study the impact of this energy transition on household employment, wages, migration, and home ownership in affected communities. Compared to non-coal-producing, resource-rich counties, coal-producing counties experience 6% and 4% drops in employment and wages, respectively, during this period. Economic mobility and access to banking services significantly moderate these real effects, suggesting a potential role for finance to shape the industrial and economic changes associated with climate transitions.