Examining a sample of 87,288 firm-year observations between 1969 and 2003, we find that firms slow the speed of adjustment toward their optimal cash holdings following the state’s adoption of labor protection laws. This effect is more pronounced for firms subjected to financial...

This paper examines the impact of having an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) rating on a firm’s debt structure. We find that optimal (market and book) leverage ratios and information asymmetry are reduced when firms become ESG rated. More importantly, ESG rated firms redistribute...

This paper examines the impact of having an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) rating on a firm’s debt structure, i.e. how firms change their leverage ratios and debt components when becoming ESG rated. Targeted market and book leverage ratios are reduced when firms become ESG rated....

This paper examines the role of cross credit rating changes on corporate cash holdings policies, focusing on the "big three" credit rating agencies (Standard and Poor's, Fitch and Moody's). Using a hand collected sample of credit ratings for firms listed at the S&P500 we initially verify the...

Even in large equity markets, the dividend-price ratio is significantly related with the growth of future dividends. In order to uncover this relationship, we use monthly dividends and a mixed data sampling technique which allows us to cope with within-year seasonality. We reduce the effect of...

We assess the role of banks to the transmission of fiscal policy reforms to the economy. We built-up a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents, banks and government. We find that banks mitigate the negative spillover effects to the economy from higher taxes....