We study the impact of financing constraints on corporate risk management. Using data on credit scores matched with unique information on firm level commercial insurance purchases, we find that financing constraints lead to higher insurance spending. We adopt a regression discontinuity design...

Sweden was one of the first countries to introduce a carbon tax in 1991. We assemble a unique dataset tracking all CO2 emissions from the Swedish manufacturing sector to estimate the impact of carbon pricing on firm-level emission intensities. In panel regressions, spanning 26 years and around...

Higher country taxes on noxious manufacturing emissions lead to substantial increases in firm R&D spending. The R&D response is driven entirely by the high-pollution firms most affected by emissions taxes. Pollution taxes increase the market value of R&D spending in polluting firms, even when...

The economic disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic prompted governments around the world to initiate an unprecedented number of temporary lending and tax deferment programs. Which firms will benefit from these programs? What are the implications for firm balance sheets and post-crisis survival?...

We study the effects of a unique lending program initiated by the Swedish government at the height of the financial crisis that allowed firms to suspend payment of all labor-related taxes and fees. Comprehensive administrative data on all Swedish firms show that firms borrowing from the program...

There exists a considerable debate in the literature investigating how stock market upswings or downswings impact financial market regulation. The present paper contributes to this literature and investigates whether financial market regulation follows a regulative cycle: does regulation, and...

Using personnel data on back-office employees of an insurance company, we calculate three measures of pay inequity, “inequality,” “envy,” and “altruism,” for total pay as well as, separately, for three pay components, salary, commissions, and year-end bonuses. Job performance is...

Assuming a liquidity constrained agent, we characterize the optimal implicit contract in a repeated game characterized by moral hazard. With longer expected contract duration, bonus pay is shown to decrease while salary promise and productivity increase. We test our model using personnel data of...

Recently, early investments in the human capital of children from socially disadvantaged environments have attracted a great deal of attention. Programs of such early intervention, aiming at children's health and well-being, are spreading considerably in the U.S. and are currently tested in...

We derive the optimal contract between a principal and a liquidity-constrained agent in a stochastically repeated environment. The contract comprises a court-enforceable explicit bonus rule and an implicit fixed salary promise that must be self-enforcing. Since the agent's rent increases with...