We investigate whether bank performance during the recent credit crisis is related to chief executive officer (CEO) incentives before the crisis. We find some evidence that banks with CEOs whose incentives were better aligned with the interests of shareholders performed worse and no evidence...

This paper develops a structural equilibrium model with intertemporal macroeconomic risk, incorporating the fact that firms are heterogeneous in their asset composition. Compared to firms that are mainly composed of invested assets, firms with growth options have higher costs of debt because...

A common method of valuing the equity in highly leveraged transactions is the flows-to-equity method. When applying this method various formulas can be used to calculate the time-varying cost of equity. In this paper we show that some commonly used formulas are inconsistent with the assumptions...

We want to assess the relationship between the equity and the debt cost of capital. Using a very simple dividend discount model we compute the implied discount rate and we compare it with the corresponding premium on the corporate credit default swap using a cointegration approach. We...

The optimal investment-dividend policy of a financially constrained firm whose earnings are subject to additive shocks is shown to exhibit several stylized economic and financial features of the firm life cycle which usually require considerably more complex models. This parsimonious model...

Between 1999 and 2007, WR Hambrecht has completed 19 IPOs in the U.S. using an auction mechanism. We analyze investor behavior and mechanism performance in these auctioned IPOs using detailed bidding data. The existence of some bids posted at high prices suggests that some investors (mostly...

Cooper and Nyborg (2008) derive a tax-adjusted discount rate formula under a constant proportion leverage policy, investor taxes and risky debt. However, their analysis assumes zero recovery in default. We extend their framework to allow for positive recovery rates. We also allow for differences...

We introduce a notion of volatility uncertainty in discrete time and define the corresponding analogue of Pengs G-expectation. In the continuous-time limit, the resulting sublinear expectation converges weakly to the G-expectation. This can be seen as a Donsker-type result for the G-Brownian...

This paper evaluates the effect of shareholder passiveness on the market for corporate control. We find that firms with more passive shareholders (lower ownership per non-institutional shareholder) are less likely to be takeover targets, less likely to be acquired and command higher premiums....

We document that corporates in emerging markets borrow more in foreign currency when the local currency provides a better hedge in downturns. We develop an international corporate finance model in which firms facing adverse selection choose the foreign currency share of their debt. In the unique...