Rebel A. Cole

Rebel A. Cole

Financial economist studying banks, commercial real estate, and how small firms get credit.

  • Chief Executive Officer, Krähenbühl Global Consulting
  • Former Professor of Finance
  • Former Federal Reserve Board staff economist
Email Dr. Cole Read the research Curriculum vitae (PDF)
Portrait of Rebel A. Cole

About

Rebel Cole began his career as a staff economist at U.S. bank regulators. At the Federal Home Loan Bank Board he worked on the savings and loan crisis. At the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas he worked on the banking crisis of the early 1990s. At the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System he oversaw the design and implementation of SEER, the Fed's main system for off-site monitoring of banks, and served as co-principal investigator for the Survey of Small Business Finances.

He then taught finance for nearly two decades at the University of Auckland, the University of New South Wales, and DePaul University, and has taught students in six countries. He has published 50 refereed articles in journals that include the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, the Review of Finance, and the Journal of Banking & Finance. His work has been cited more than 15,000 times on Google Scholar, and he ranks in the top 0.1 percent of authors on SSRN.

He received his Ph.D. in finance from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1988.

  • Banks and bank failure

    Early warning models, regulatory forbearance, capital adequacy, and why banks fail. Current work tracks commercial real estate exposure and unrealized losses at U.S. banks.

  • Small business finance

    Who needs credit and who gets it, relationship lending, start-up capital structure, and the effects of regulation on lending to small firms.

  • Commercial real estate

    Appraisal accuracy, REIT liquidity, real estate returns, and the role of real estate lending in banking crises.

  • Corporate governance

    Agency costs, ownership structure, executive pay at private firms, and minority-shareholder protection in China.

Most-cited work

Citations on Google Scholar as of December 31, 2025. Bar length is relative to the most-cited paper.

  1. Agency costs and ownership structure
    Ang, Cole and Lin, Journal of Finance, 2000
    4,420
  2. 1,376
  3. Cookie-cutter versus character: The micro structure of small-business lending by large and small banks
    Cole, Goldberg and White, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 2004
    1,192
  4. Déjà vu all over again: The causes of U.S. commercial bank failures this time around
    Cole and White, Journal of Financial Services Research, 2012
    663
  5. Expropriation through loan guarantees to related parties: Evidence from China
    Berkman, Cole and Fu, Journal of Banking & Finance, 2009
    590
  6. Political connections and minority-shareholder protection: Evidence from securities-market regulation in China
    Berkman, Cole and Fu, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 2010
    516
  7. Predicting bank failures: A comparison of on- and off-site monitoring systems
    Cole and Gunther, Journal of Financial Services Research, 1998
    498
  8. Separating the likelihood and timing of bank failure
    Cole and Gunther, Journal of Banking & Finance, 1995
    464

All 50 refereed articles and 34 reports and chapters

Recent publications

Full publication list

In the news

All 76 media appearances since 2010

Policy work

Since 1998 Dr. Cole has advised the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and regional technical assistance centers. On more than 80 missions he has helped central banks in more than 30 countries build stress tests, financial stability reports, and off-site monitoring systems for their banks. He also testifies on banking and small business lending.

Rebel Cole testifying at a witness table before the Illinois Senate committee
Testifying before the Illinois Senate Committee on Financial Services on the decline in bank lending to small businesses, January 25, 2016. Written testimony (PDF), video.
Rebel Cole leading a stress testing workshop for Sudanese officials
Training Sudanese government officials on stress testing, Khartoum, March 2016.
Rebel Cole presenting at a Bank of Ghana workshop
Training Bank of Ghana staff on implementing Basel II, Accra, June 2015.

Consulting and technical assistance at Krähenbühl Global Consulting

Career

Regulation, policy, and consulting

  1. 1997–presentKrähenbühl Global Consulting
    Chief Executive Officer
  2. 1997–1999Employment Policies Institute, Washington
    Chief Economist
  3. 1993–1997Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
    Financial Economist, Capital Markets Section
  4. 1991–1993Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
    Supervisory Financial Analyst and Deputy Director, Surveillance Section
  5. 1989–1991Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
    Financial Economist
  6. 1987–1989Federal Home Loan Bank Board
    Financial Economist

Academic appointments

  1. 2003–2016DePaul University, Chicago
    Professor of Finance and Real Estate
  2. 2001–2003University of New South Wales, Sydney
    Professor of Finance
  3. 1999–2001University of Auckland
    Professor of Finance

Education

  1. 1988Ph.D., Business Administration (Finance)
    Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  2. 1981B.A., Economics, Industrial Relations and Political Science
    University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill