Frictions in Financial Intermediation

This dissertation comprises essays examining frictions among financial intermediaries: venture capital firms, investment banks, and commercial banks. The first essay explores the effect of gender on VC-financed entrepreneurship. I find that women’s participation in VC-financed entrepreneurship is lower than in other sectors of the economy. Further, women lead startups that perform worse than startups led by men. Does interaction with venture capitalists (VCs) contribute to these disparities? To answer these questions, I compare the gender gap in performance between startups initially financed by VCs with only male general partners (GPs) and those initially financed by VCs that include female GPs. I find a large performance gender gap among startups financed by VCs with only male GPs but no such gap among startups financed by VCs that include female GPs. This suggests that VC gender composition has contributed strongly to the performance gap between female and male-led startups, which could deter women from leading VC-financed projects and lower their participation. The second essay analyzes whether mid-level managers in securitized finance were aware of a large-scale housing bubble and a looming crisis in 2004-2006 using their personal home transaction data. We find that the average person in our sample did not exhibit awareness of problems in overall housing markets. Certain groups of securitization agents were particularly aggressive in increasing their exposure to housing during this period, suggesting the need to expand the incentives-based view of the crisis to incorporate a role for beliefs. The third essay uses a uniquely extensive dataset on deposit interest rates, maintenance fees, and fee thresholds, and documents substantial variation in these prices. We then examine whether variation in concentration helps explain variation in prices. The standard measure of concentration, the HHI, is not correlated with any prices. We then construct a generalized HHI (GHHI) that captures both common ownership and cross-ownership of banks. The GHHI is strongly correlated with all prices. We use growth of index funds as an arguably exogenous source of variation of common ownership to suggest a causal link from GHHI to higher deposit prices.PhDBusiness AdministrationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/133287/1/sraina_1.pd

Wall Street and the Housing Bubble

We analyze whether mid-level managers in securitized finance were aware of a large-scale housing bubble and a looming crisis in 2004-2006 using their personal home transaction data. We find that the average person in our sample neither timed the market nor were cautious in their home transactions, and did not exhibit awareness of problems in overall housing markets. Certain groups of securitization agents were particularly aggressive in increasing their exposure to housing during this period, suggesting the need to expand the incentives-based view of the crisis to incorporate a role for beliefs

Ultimate Ownership and Bank Competition

We use a uniquely extensive branch-level dataset on deposit account interest rates, maintenance fees, and fee thresholds, and document substantial time-series and cross-sectional variation in these prices. We then examine whether variation in bank concentration helps explain the variation in prices. The standard measure of concentration, the HHI, is not correlated with any of the outcome variables. We then construct a generalized HHI (GHHI) that captures both common ownership (the degree to which banks are commonly owned by the same investors) and cross-ownership (the extent to which banks own shares in each other). The GHHI is strongly correlated with all prices. We use the growth of index funds as an arguably exogenous source of cross-sectional variation of county-level common ownership growth to suggest a causal link from the GHHI to higher prices for banking products

Social Determinants of Health Impacting Access to Renal Dialysis for Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Although widespread, the burden of disease presented by chronic kidney disease (CKD) is not equally distributed among all demographics. Examining the social determinants of health (SDOH) that relate to barriers to renal dialysis care in CKD can help to prevent future disparities. There has not been a study addressing the social factors that create barriers to care for ethnic minority patients with CKD. The aim of this scoping review is to address the SDOH that affects access to renal dialysis for ethnic minority patients in the United States. This study was based on the protocol published by the Joanna Briggs Institute. A total of 349 studies were identified from PubMed, EBSCOhost, and Embase. Each article was screened against population, concept, and context criteria in order to be considered for inclusion. The population was determined to be adults of all genders from underrepresented minority populations. The selected concept was SDOH. The context of this study was the United States population. From the articles selected by the search criteria, neighborhood of residence, mental health care access, glomerular filtration rate (GFR) methodology, socioeconomic status (SES), language barriers, immigration status, and military rank were identified as SDOH affecting access to renal dialysis care. While this study identified four social determinants, more research is needed for the investigation of other possible SDOH contributing to disparities related to CKD and access to renal dialysis care