We show that in an imperfect information environment the equity value of an impaired bank may increase or decrease when it is required to meet a capital standard. Regardless of the change in the bank's equity value, however, its stock price will fall in response to a forced recapitalization, consistent with recent empirical evidence. Simulations of our model suggest that this stock price decline is likely to be larger the smaller is the share of ownership held by the managers of the bank, also consistent with recent empirical evidence in the literature. Our model further predicts a rise in bank's non-interest expenses following a required recapitalization. Given the increase in the regulator's exposure that would accompany a reduction in the bank's market value of equity, the regulator may choosenotto enforce the regulation. Hence, capital regulation may be time-inconsistent in this situation and consequently not have its intended risk-mitigating incentives.

We provide empirical evidence that a firm's overall visibility with investors, as measured by its product market advertising, has important consequences for the stock market. Specifically we show that firms with greater advertising expenditures, ceteris paribus, have a larger number of both individual and institutional investors, and better liquidity of their common stock. Our findings are robust to a variety of methodological approaches and to various measures of liquidity. These results suggest that the investors' degree of familiarity with a firm may affect its cost of capital and consequently its value.

We characterize a credit market equilibrium in which banks coexist with capital markets and firms obtain funding from both sources. An incentive problem exists between the firm’s insiders and outside providers of capital. Banks can provide not only credit but also monitoring services. We show that when banks cannot precommit to a particular level of monitoring, there is a unique credit market equilibrium with firms being financed with a combination of bank credit and external capital. In this equilibrium, a marginal substitution of bank credit for capital market financing would raise the firm’s stock price.

This paper compares the optimal lending decisions of financial intermediaries that differ in their risk exposure. All intermediaries are assumed to face a loan demand described by a random applicant arrival process with each applicant offering a unique risk‐adjusted rate of return; loan demand is therefore uncertain in both quantity and quality. The intermediaries differ in terms of their risk exposure because of disparate funding practices. Intermediaries functioning as brokers minimize their exposure by borrowing funds only as demand is realized, whereas those behaving as asset‐transformers borrow in advance of realizing loan demand, thereby maintaining a loanable funds inventory and sustaining the related exposure. The optimal sequential lending policy is shown to involve setting a credit standard that becomes stricter with the length of the intermediary's planning horizon and the volume of loans outstanding. Most importantly, it is shown that brokers adopt stricter credit standards than asset‐transformers and therby reduce their volume of lending.

The financial intermediary's choice of operating as a broker with minimal risk exposure or as an asset‐transformer with interest rate risk is modeled as a funds inventory decision made prior to the resolution of uncertainty regarding the borrowing or lending interest rates. It is shown that an increase in the interest rate uncertainty leads the intermediary to reduce its exposure, thereby offering decreased asset‐transformation and more brokerage services. However, a stochastic increase in the interest rates leads to greater asset‐transformation and less brokerage services.

This paper examines the effects of loan commitments on bank lending behavior in both deposit‐funding and liability management environments. Assuming that the bank lends exclusively under commitments and that the number of commitments exercised is uncertain, the bank must choose its supply of commitments. Given this choice, the bank becomes a passive lender to commitment holders. Our focus on forward credit markets sheds new light on the private bankers' assertion that they do not directly determine their level of lending, but merely “accommodate” the credit needs of their customers. Similarly, the central banker's claimed inability to control monetary aggregates in the short‐run becomes understandable in a new context. It is shown that the advent of liability management will reduce the volume of loan commitments and the expected size of the bank and of the banking system. It is also shown that increased uncertainty regarding borrower takedown behavior diminishes the volume of commitments, expected bank and banking system size.

We provide empirical evidence that a firm's overall visibility with investors, as measured by its product market advertising, has important consequences for the stock market. Specifically we show that firms with greater advertising expenditures, ceteris paribus, have a larger number of both individual and institutional investors, and better liquidity of their common stock. Our findings are robust to a variety of methodological approaches and to various measures of liquidity. These results suggest that the investors' degree of familiarity with a firm may affect its cost of capital and consequently its value.