Unregulated U.S. corporations dramatically increased their debt usage over the past century. Aggregate leverage - low and stable before 1945 - more than tripled between 1945 and 1970 from 11% to 35%, eventually reaching 47% by the early 1990s. The median firm in 1946 had no debt, but by 1970 had...

Using a novel dataset of accounting and market information that spans most publicly traded nonfinancial firms over the last century, we show that U.S. federal government debt issuance significantly affects corporate financial policies and balance sheets through its impact on investors' portfolio...

We document the cross-sectional properties of corporate dividend-smoothing policies and relate them to extant theories. We find that younger, smaller firms, firms with low dividend yields and more volatile earnings and returns, and firms with fewer and more disperse analyst forecasts smooth...