In this thesis, I investigate economic and policy implications of corporate debt financing. In the first chapter, I examine whether or not leverage has a negative effect on corporate investment due to a debt overhang problem. Existing empirical studies face a challenging endogeneity problem...

We use a sample of democratic firms (with 5 or less anti-takeover provisions) from the Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) database and use idiosyncratic volatility as a proxy for information from the market of corporate control as in Ferreira and Laux (2007) to link the equity...

This study examines the relationship between the cost of public bonds and corporate social responsibility. We use firms added to the KLD 400 Index, a stock index of corporate social responsibility, and find that these firms have a significantly higher yield spread following inclusion to the...

This paper examines the cross-listings by Chinese companies in Hong Kong, Singapore, and the U.S. markets from 1993 to 2005. Our sample consists of 101 firms cross-listed in Hong Kong, 43 firms in the U.S. and 77 firms in Singapore and a sample of 1,247 domestic listings. We find that the...

We examine impediments to liquidity provision by mutual funds to insurance companies during corporate bond fire sales. We find that financial regulation and limited capital capacity significantly affect liquidity provision. Mutual funds reduced their purchase of fire sale bonds following...

We examine the real effect of privatization in terms of technological innovation. To establish causality, we explore plausibly exogenous variation in privatization generated by a quasi-natural experiment – China's split share structure reform, which mandatorily converts non-tradable shares to...

This paper examines the decision to list abroad by Chinese companies in the form of ADRs and foreign IPOs from 1993 to 2005. Our sample consists of 33 ADRs, 218 foreign IPOs, and a sample of 1,418 domestic listings. We find evidence to support that issuers are motivated to cross-list due to the...

We examine the real effect of partial privatization on corporate innovation. To establish causality, we explore plausibly exogenous variation in the expectation of further partial privatization generated by China’s split share structure reform, which mandatorily converts non-tradable shares...