This paper develops a control-function methodology accounting for endogenous or mismeasured regressors in hazard models. I provide sufficient identifying assumptions and regularity conditions for the estimator to be consistent and asymptotically normal. Applying my estimator to the subprime...

Secured lenders have recently demanded a new condition in distressed debt restructurings: competing secured lenders must lose priority. We model the implications of this "creditor-on-creditor violence" trend. In our dynamic model, secured lenders enjoy higher priority in default. However,...

In this paper, we assemble the most comprehensive dataset to date on the characteristics of colleges and universities, including dates of operation, institutional setting, student body, staff, and finance data from 2002 to 2023. We provide an extensive description of what is known and unknown...

Dun's Review began publishing monthly data on bankruptcies by branch of business during the 1890s. Those series evolved through many iterations. This essay reconstructs the series from 1895 to 1935 and discusses how it can be used for economic analysis

In an RCT with US small businesses, we document that a large share of firms are not well-informed about bankruptcy. Many assume that bankruptcy necessarily entails the death of a business and do not know about Chapter 11 bankruptcy, where debts are renegotiated so that the business can continue...

Previous estimates indicate that COVID-19 led to a large drop in the number of operating businesses operating early in the pandemic, but surprisingly little is known on whether these shutdowns turned into permanent closures and whether small businesses were disproportionately hit. This paper...

Many small businesses have closed, lost revenues, or downsized as a response to health and economic disruptions caused by COVID-19. But, were economic losses in the pandemic disproportionately felt by businesses owned by people of color? This paper provides the first study of the impacts of...

During the Progressive Era (1900-29), economic growth was rapid but volatile. Boom and busts witnessed the formation and failure of tens of thousands of firms and thousands of banks. This essay uses new data and methods to identify causal links between failures of banks and bankruptcies of...

We study the role of export credit agencies--the predominant tool of industrial policy--on firm behavior by using the effective shutdown of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) from 2015-2019 as a natural experiment. We show that firms that previously relied on EXIM support saw a...

Historically coal has offered both benefits and costs to urban areas. Benefits include coal's role in fueling industry and thus employment. The primary costs are air pollution and its impact on human health. This paper starts by using a Rosen-Roback style model to examine how differences in...