We test how the use of financial derivatives affects banks’ informational structure and future stock performance based on a sample of large bank holding companies in the US. Using banks’ use of financial derivatives as a proxy for opacity, we find that high level use of interest rate and foreign exchange derivatives are associated with an increase in the synchronicity (R2) of stock price movements with the market index, which indicates less revelation of bank-specific information to the market. This finding is consistent with the prediction of the model developed by Wagner (2007). We document that superior corporate governance tempers these effects. Finally, we find that an increase in the opacity is significantly and positively related to an increase in banks’ future stock price crash risk.

This paper investigates the consequences of the liquidity shocks in wholesale funding markets during the 2007–2009 financial crisis on bank lending and corporate financing. We show that banks that relied more heavily on wholesale funding contracted lending more severely than banks that relied more on insured deposits. We then examine the effects of loan contraction on the financial positions of publicly traded firms. We find that both during and after the crisis, the change in leverage of bank-dependent firms is less than that of firms with access to public debt markets. In addition, bank-dependent firms rely more on cash than net equity issuance to finance operations. We also find that firms with established bank lending relationships weather the crisis better. Such firms are able to attain higher levels of leverage during the crisis, add to their cash holdings, secure new bank credit, and achieve higher profitability as a result.

This study evaluates the link between CEO governance heterogeneity, power structure of the firm, and product market competition on various facets of post-IPO cash policy. Our results suggest that post-IPO cash holdings as well as marginal value of cash reserves are higher under a founder CEO governance regime relative to non-founder CEOs. Concentrating board power in the hands of founder CEOs however, reduces their ability to maintain higher post-IPO cash reserves. Our results also suggest that product market competition influences both the level and marginal value of cash reserves in the hands of founder CEOs. Further, we find that stronger internal governance reduces the tendency of IPO firms to deploy excess cash reserves to fund internal investments in excess of industry rivals. Finally, our results suggest that excess cash reserves in competitive industry environments lead to superior post-IPO operating performance.

We examine whether the financial market charged a default risk premium to US Treasury securities when the US Federal government repeatedly reached the legally binding debt limits between 2002 and 2006. We show that for the first two of the four recurrences since the first episode in 1996, the financial market charged a small default risk premium to the Treasury securities. However, we find no significant evidence of a pricing effect in the last two recurrences. The results suggest that the financial market gradually perceived the budget standoffs as the boy who cried wolf.