Zongbo Huang

We study auctions in which buyers covertly acquire information at some cost and then bid securities contingent on the asset's realized value to them. In first- and second-price auctions, steeper securities lead to lower marginal returns to information and potentially lower revenues. We then consider the revenue-maximizing linear mechanism. The mechanism is efficient. The winner pays in cash if their expected values exceed a threshold and pays in stock otherwise. The threshold decreases as the marginal cost of acquiring information increases. Our empirical analysis supports the model's implications that stock payments are associated with lower takeover synergies and information costs.

We study how cryptocurrency markets process fragmented price-relevant information across media channels. We develop a cryptocurrency valuation model where social media complements traditional media through signal refinement and substitutes for it by providing unique information. Using a comprehensive dataset of 58 granular sentiment and attention measures spanning social media, news, and television coverage for 267 cryptocurrencies, we test our model's predictions. Our findings indicate that social media becomes price-informative primarily when accompanied by concurrent traditional media coverage, with stronger effects when sentiment alignment occurs across platforms. Social media, therefore, complements rather than substitutes traditional media in cryptocurrency price formation.

We study the impact of policy uncertainty on shadow banking activities. When policy uncertainty heightens, banks set higher return targets when issuing new off-balance sheet shadow products. Concurrently, they extend stronger implicit guarantees to maturing products, signaling product safety and reassuring investors during uncertain times. When banks provide stronger implicit guarantees, policy uncertainty triggers risk spillovers from the shadow banking sector to the wider banking system, undermining financial stability. Consequently, our findings shed light on the post-crisis regulatory guidelines concerning step-in risk.

I study asset-side runs on credit lines in an infinite-horizon banking model. Strategic complementarity between bankers and credit line borrowers arises: borrowers' panic drawdowns and bankers' liquidity rationing reinforce each other, leading to a vicious cycle. Using data from U.S. banks, I estimate the model and quantify the amplification effect due to the strategic complementarity. This amplification effect accounts for two-thirds of the overall credit shortfalls during the 2008-09 crisis. My estimation also suggests policies targeting banks and borrowers simultaneously to support bank credit.

We study how risks spillover from shadow banking activities to traditional banks through implicit guarantees. Using data on wealth management products, China's largest shadow banking component, we find that banks with higher interbank borrowing rates strategically provide stronger implicit guarantees to their issued wealth management products. Extending implicit guarantees builds bank reputations and reduces rollover costs while exposing banks to losses from shadow banking activities. Our findings thus suggest a bank-specific approach to assessing the risk of implicit guarantees based on transparent and real-time interbank rates.

This paper quantifies the aggregate effects of financing constraints. We start from a standard dynamic investment model with collateral constraints. In contrast to the existing quantitative literature, our estimation does not target the mean leverage ratio to identify the scope of financing frictions. Instead, we use a reduced-form coefficient from the recent corporate finance literature that connects exogenous debt capacity shocks to corporate investment. Relative to a frictionless benchmark, collateral constraints induce losses of 7.1% for output and 1.4% for TFP (misallocation). We show these estimated losses tend to be more robust to misspecification than estimates obtained by targeting leverage.

We embed imperfect substitutability across skill levels into a dynamic Mirrlees model and uncover a novel intertemporal wage compression channel in optimal labor taxation that can rationalize redistributive programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit.

This paper develops a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous beliefs and collateral constraints. The endogenously determined haircuts are countercyclical and thus lead to a downward margin spiral that exacerbates financial instability.