In this paper, we investigate how personal bankruptcy law affects small firms' access to credit. When a firm is unincorporated, its debts are personal liabilities of the firm's owner, so that lending to the firm is legally equivalent to lending to its owner. If the firm fails, the owner has an...

We propose a novel mechanism, "financial dampening," whereby loan retrenchment by banks attenuates the effectiveness of monetary policy. The theory unifies an endogenous supply of illiquid local loans and risk-sharing among subsidiaries of bank holding companies (BHCs). We derive an IV-strategy...

An equilibrium model of financial crises driven by Irving Fisher's financial amplification mechanism features a pecuniary externality, because private agents do not internalize how the price of assets used for collateral respond to collective borrowing decisions, particularly when binding...

Standard economic theory says that unsecured, high-interest, short-term debt -- such as borrowing via credit cards and bank overdraft facilities -- helps individuals smooth consumption in the event of transitory income shocks. This paper shows that -- on average -- individuals do not use such...

An emerging new literature brings unique ideas from corporate finance to the study of international trade and investment. Insights about differences in the development of financial institutions across countries, the role of financial constraints, and the use of internal capital markets are...

We develop a model of investment timing under uncertainty for a financially constrained firm. Facing external financing costs, the firm prefers to fund its investment through internal funds, so that the firm's optimal investment policy and value depend on both its earnings fundamentals and...

One of the explanations for global imbalances is the self-financing behavior of credit-constrained firms in rapidly growing emerging markets. We use an extensive firm-level data set from several Asian countries during 2002-2011, and test the micro foundation of this theory by estimating the...

This paper investigates the 2013 three-fold increase in the French dividend tax rate. Using administrative data covering the universe of firms from 2008-2017 and a quasi-experimental setting, we find that firms swiftly cut dividend payments and used this tax-induced increase in liquidity to...

This paper examines micro data on U.S. firms' inventories during different macroeconomic episodes. Much of the analysis focuses on the 1981-82 recession, a recession that was apparently precipitated by tight monetary policy. We find important cross-sectional effects in this period: firms that...