I am the Scientific Director of the Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE and a Professor of Finance at Goethe University Frankfurt. Before joining SAFE, I headed the Financial Markets Research Section at the European Central Bank.

My research is on financial intermediation, and in particular on the role of banks in the transmission of monetary policy. I also work on market design and on capital structure. Most of my work combines theory with evidence from bank-level and credit-register data.

At SAFE I am responsible for the institute’s research and for its policy work on European banking and capital markets.

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