As the financial services industry becomes increasingly international, the more narrowly defined and historically protected national financial markets become less significant. Consequently, financial institutions must achieve a critical size in order to compete. Bank Mergers & Acquisitions...

We investigate how firms manage financial default risk (on debt) and operational default risk (on delivery obligations). Financially constrained firms reduce operational hedging through inventory and supply chain in favor of cash holdings. Our model predicts that firms' markup increases with...

"We study the exposure of the U.S. corporate bond returns to liquidity shocks of stocks and treasury bonds over the period 1973 to 2007. A decline in liquidity of stocks or Treasury bonds produces conflicting effects: Prices of investment-grade bonds rise while prices of speculative grade bonds...