This article studies how credit markets respond to policy constraints on household leverage. Exploiting a sharp policy-induced discontinuity in the cost of originating certain high-leverage mortgages, we study how the Dodd–Frank “Ability-to-Repay” rule affected the price and availability of credit in the U.S. mortgage market. Our estimates show that the policy had only moderate effects on prices, increasing interest rates on affected loans by 10–15 basis points. The effect on quantities, however, was significantly larger; we estimate that the policy eliminated 15% of the affected market completely and reduced leverage for another 20% of remaining borrowers. This reduction in quantities is much greater than would be implied by plausible demand elasticities and indicates that lenders responded to the policy not only by raising prices but also by exiting the regulated portion of the market. Heterogeneity in the quantity response across lenders suggests that agency costs may have been one particularly important market friction contributing to the large overall effect as the fall in lending was substantially larger among lenders relying on third-parties to originate loans. Finally, while the policy succeeded in reducing leverage, our estimates suggest this effect would have only slightly reduced aggregate default rates during the housing crisis

We show how shareholder-debtholder agency conflicts interact with strategic reporting under asymmetric information to influence bank regulation. Relative to a benchmark unregulated economy, higher capital requirements mitigate inefficient asset substitution, but potentially exacerbate underinvestment due to debt overhang. The optimal regulatory policy balances distortions created by agency conflicts and asymmetric information while incorporating the social benefit of bank debt. Asymmetric information and strategic reporting only impact regulation for intermediate social debt benefit levels. For lower social debt benefits in this interval, regulatory capital requirements are insensitive to accounting reports, so bank balance sheets need not be marked to market to implement the optimal regulatory policy. For higher social debt benefits, however, capital requirements are sensitive to accounting reports, thereby necessitating mark-to-market accounting to implement bank regulation. Mark-to-market accounting is essential when bank leverage levels are high, and is more likely to be necessary as banks' asset risk or specificity increases

Our model shows that when regulation is based on credit ratings, banks with low charter value maximize shareholder value by minimizing capital and selecting identically rated loans and bonds with the highest systematic risk. This regulatory arbitrage is possible if the credit spreads on same-rated loans and bonds are greater when their systematic risk (debt beta) is higher. We empirically confirm this relationship between credit spreads, ratings, and debt betas. We also show that banks with lower capital select syndicated loans with higher debt betas and credit spreads. Banks with lower charter value choose overall assets with higher systematic risk. Received July 27, 2016; editorial decision May 29, 2018 by Editor Itay Goldstein

We show that borrowing firms benefit substantially from important enforcement actions issued on U.S. banks for safety and soundness reasons. Using hand-collected data on such actions from the main three U.S. regulators and syndicated loan deals over the years 1997–2014, we find that enforcement actions decrease the total cost of borrowing by approximately 22 basis points (or $4.6 million interest for the average loan). We attribute our finding to a competition-reputation effect that works over and above the lower risk of punished banks post-enforcement and survives in a number of sensitivity tests. We also find that this effect persists for approximately four years post-enforcement

We examine whether stress tests distort banks' risk‐taking decisions. We study a model in which a regulator may choose to rescue banks in the event of concurrent bank failures. Our analysis reveals a novel coordination role of stress tests. Disclosure of stress‐test results informs banks of the failure likelihood of other banks, which can reduce welfare by facilitating banks' coordination in risk‐taking. However, conducting stress tests also enables the regulator to more effectively intervene banks, coordinating them preemptively into taking lower risks. We find that, if the regulator has a strong incentive to bail out, stress tests improve welfare, whereas if the regulator's incentive to bail out is weak, stress tests impair welfare

We study how the interplay of disclosure and regulation shapes capital allocation in reward crowdfunding. Using data from Kickstarter, the largest online reward crowdfunding platform, we show that, even in the absence of clear regulation and enforcement mechanisms, disclosure helps entrepreneurs access capital for their projects and bolsters engagement with potential project backers, consistent with the notion that disclosure mitigates moral hazard. We further document that, subsequent to a change in Kickstarter's terms of use that increases the threat of consumer litigation, the association between project funding and disclosure becomes stronger. This evidence suggests that consumer protection regulation enhances the perceived credibility of disclosure. We find the effect of the change in terms of use to be more pronounced in states with stricter consumer protection regulations. Taken together, our findings yield important insights on the role of disclosure, as well as on the potential effects of increased regulation on crowdfunding platforms

The financial security of the investing public relies on high‐quality service by broker‐dealers (BDs), investors' gateway to the financial markets. The SEC has long required auditors to attest to BDs' internal controls and compliance with regulations (including those privately owned). Following the unraveling of the Madoff Ponzi scheme in 2008, the SEC required auditors of all BDs to register with the PCAOB, and Congressional initiatives signaled imminent transition from private (AICPA) to public (PCAOB) oversight. We investigate whether audit quality increased following this transition by measuring whether auditors report material internal control and compliance problems for BD clients where a deficiency presumably existed (i.e., BDs sanctioned by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority for transgressions against stakeholders). Overall, we do not find increased reporting quality following the regulatory shift but do observe variation by auditor group and BD ownership. While reporting quality for global network firms (GNFs) increases slightly, lower reporting quality observed prior to the regulatory shift for specialist audit firms (having large BD portfolios but small overall size) is exacerbated afterward. This finding complements results of PCAOB inspections and other research identifying audit quality problems among small, industry‐specialized firms in non‐public client settings. Focusing on deficiencies likely more difficult to detect, we find lower reporting quality for private relative to publicly affiliated BDs prior to PCAOB oversight, and lower reporting quality for very small audit firms relative to GNFs following the regulatory shift

In this study we use the SEC's decision to eliminate the reconciliation requirement for cross-listed companies to examine whether this loss of information prompted financial analysts to provide more informative research reports. We first document that the informativeness of analyst earnings forecasts increased, on average, in the post-regulation period for the sample of firms that stopped providing the reconciliation information (regulated firms). We next relate this change in informativeness to stock liquidity, a common proxy for information asymmetry. We do not find any change in market liquidity for regulated firms with greater analyst informativeness in the post-regulation period. In contrast, we document a decrease in market liquidity for regulated firms with lower analyst informativeness. These results support the conjecture that, when analysts compensate for the loss of information, the firm's information environment is not affected. We conclude that analysts can play an important role in capital markets as information providers and that their research can be especially valuable in times of information shortage

In this paper, we use academic independent director resignations induced by the introduction of the Regulation 11 prohibiting academics from holding positions in Chinese public companies to examine their contribution to firm value. We document a negative market reaction to the issuance of the Regulation 11 and to the academic director resignations. The negative market reaction to academic director resignations is sizeable and hold when we further control for the influence of director, board, and firm characteristics. We next use heterogeneity in the market response to academic director resignations to study what the market values in academic directors. We find supportive evidence of a monitoring contribution and mixed evidence of advising and networking contributions. Finally, we show that in the two years following the issuance of the Regulation 11, companies with at least one academic director on their board prior to Regulation 11 underperform relative to companies without any academic directors. Overall, our results are consistent with a positive contribution of academic independent directors to firm value

This paper examines external financing of small and growth firms using a regulatory experiment in the US microcap market. The paper focuses on a new financing method for entrepreneurial firms – small public offerings under Regulation A, which was significantly expanded by 2015 amendments. Regulation A offerings serve as a financing alternative for issuers that seek public capital but are unable to conduct a traditional registered public offering. Compared to small registered public offerings, Regulation A involves fewer requirements and draws smaller, younger companies, often raising capital without intermediaries or on a best efforts basis. Regulation A companies raise less capital on average after accounting for their historical financials. The use of Regulation A increased significantly following the 2015 shock, particularly in market segments that had more private placements and traditional public offerings. Different types of issuers are pursuing Regulation A and registered offerings, and Regulation A does not appear to draw issuers away from traditional public offerings