|| This seminar is open ONLY to EUI members ||

Join us for the next event of the 'Finance in the Tuscan Hills' seminar series, where we host Sumit Agarwal, Low Tuck Kwong Distinguished Professor of Finance at the Business School and a Professor of Economics and Real Estate at the National University of Singapore.

In his paper, Professor Sumit Agarwal exploits quasi-random variation in COVID-19 travel restrictions across U.S. states to examine the impact of remote examinations on the assessment of bank safety and soundness. Compared to in-person examinations, remote examinations yield less precise assessments of bank health. Examiners produce less detailed reports, identify fewer specific "Matters Requiring Attention", and assign numerical ratings that are less predictive of future bank health. In addition, remote examinations lead to more negative ratings of bank health. This transition toward more negative ratings when information is less precise is consistent with a strategy by examiners to reduce the costs of underestimating future bank problems.

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Sumit Agarwal is Low Tuck Kwong Distinguished Professor of Finance at the Business School and a Professor of Economics and Real Estate at the National University of Singapore. He is the Managing Director of Sustainable and Green Finance Institute at NUS. He is also the President of Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research. In the past, he has held positions as a Professor of Finance at the Business School, Georgetown University. Before that he was a senior financial economist in the research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and prior to joining the Chicago Fed, he was a senior vice president and credit risk management executive in the Small Business Risk Solutions Group of Bank of America.

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The FBF seminar series ‘Finance in the Tuscan Hills’ focuses on financial sector issues and aims to bring together researchers from across the EUI community, who share an interest in these subjects.