Capital structure studies have generally been aimed at studying the determinants of optimal leverage. Empirically, the focus is, however, on studying the association between observed leverage and a set of explanatory variables. This approach has a number of shortcomings. First, the observed...

The common approach in empirical capital structure research has been to study the determinants of optimal leverage by studying the association between observed leverage and a set of explanatory variables. This approach has two major shortcomings. First, the observed leverage need not necessarily...

The paper proposes a theory of the anti-competitive effects of debt finance based on the interaction between capital structure, managerial incentives, and firms' ability to sustain collusive agreements. It shows that shareholders' commitments that reduce conflicts with debtholders - such as...

We report evidence that salience may have economically significant effects on homeowners' borrowing behavior, through a bias in favour of less salient but more costly loans. We outline a simple model in which some consumers are biased. Under plausible assumptions, the bias may affect prices in...

The effect of tax discrimination of equity capital on the simultaneous choice of financial structure and operational risk is studied in a model with symmetrical information, risk neutral investors, bankruptcy costs and small open economy assumptions. Taxes are either proportional to the amount...

Using data from 17 countries that have suffered a currency crisis, this paper studies firm-level leverage and performance measures before and after a crisis has occurred. We show that in the years preceding a currency crisis, companies that are expected to benefit from currency depreciations...

In this paper we propose a Lagrange multiplier test for volatility interactions among markets or assets. The null hypothesis is the Constant Conditional Correlation GARCH model in which volatility of an asset is described only through lagged squared innovations and volatility of its own. The...

The detection of structural change and determination of lag lengths are long-standing issues in time series analysis. This paper demonstrates how these can be successfully married in a Bayesian analysis. By taking account of the inherent uncertainty about the lag length when deciding on the...

In this paper we introduce the STAR-STGARCH model that can characterize nonlinear behaviour both in the conditional mean and the conditional variance. A modelling cycle for this family of models, consisting of specification, estimation, and evaluation stages is constructed. Misspecification...

This paper considers maximum likelihood estimation and inference in the two-way random effects model with serial correlation. We derive a straightforward maximum likelihood estimator when the time-specific component follow an AR(1) or MA(1) process. The estimator is easily generalized to...