Securitization and lending standards: Evidence from the European wholesale loan market

We assess the relative effect of securitization activity on banks’ lending rates employing a uniquely detailed dataset from the euro-denominated syndicated loan market. We find that in the run-up to the 2007–2009 crisis banks more active at originating asset-backed securities did not price their loans more aggressively (i.e. with narrower lending spreads) than non-active banks. We show that also within the set of loans that were previously securitized, the relative level of securitization activity by the originating bank is not related to narrower lending spreads. Our findings, which are limited to the cross-sectional impact of securitization, suggest that the effect of securitization on the cost of corporate funding appears to be quite limited

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

A 50,000-year record of lake-level variations and overflow from Owens Lake, eastern California, USA

A continuous lake-level curve was constructed for Owens Lake, eastern California by integrating lake-core data and shoreline geomorphology with new wind-wave and sediment entrainment modeling of lake-core sedimentology. This effort enabled refinement of the overflow history and development of a better understanding of the effects of regional and global climate variability on lake levels of the paleo-Owens River system during the last 50,000 years. The elevations of stratigraphic sites, plus lake bottom and spillway positions were corrected for vertical tectonic deformation using a differential fault-block model to estimate the absolute hydrologic change of the watershed-lake system. New results include 14C dating of mollusk shells in shoreline deposits, plus post-IR-IRSL dating of a suite of five beach ridges and OSL dating of spillway alluvial and deltaic deposits in deep boreholes. Geotechnical data show the overflow area is an entrenched channel that had erodible sills composed of unconsolidated fluvial-deltaic and alluvial sediment at elevations of ∼1113–1165 m above mean sea level. Owens Lake spilled most of the time at or near minimum sill levels, controlled by a bedrock sill at ∼1113 m. Nine major transgressions at ∼40.0, 38.7, 23.3, 19.3, 15.6, 13.8, 12.8, 11.6, and 10.6 ka reached levels ∼10–45 m above the bedrock sill. Several major regressions at or below the bedrock sill from 36.9 to 28.5 ka, and at ∼17.8, 12.9, and 10.4–8.8 ka indicate little to no overflow during these times. The latest period of overflow occurred ∼10–20 m above the bedrock sill from ∼8.4 to 6.4 ka that was followed by closed basin conditions after ∼6.4 ka. Previous lake core age-depth models were revised by accounting for sediment compaction and using no reservoir correction for open basin conditions, thereby reducing discrepancies between Owens Lake shoreline and lake-core proxy records. The integrated analysis provides a continuous 50 ka lake-level record of hydroclimate variability along the south-central Sierra Nevada that is consistent with other shoreline and speleothem records in the southwestern U.S