The average cash to assets ratio for U.S. industrial firms increases by 129% from 1980 to 2004. Because of this increase in the average cash ratio, American firms at the end of the sample period can pay back their debt obligations with their cash holdings, so that the average firm has no...

We characterize the relation between asset structure and capital structure by exploiting variation in the salability of corporate assets. Theory suggests that asset tangibility increases borrowing capacity because it allows creditors to more easily repossess a firm's assets. Tangible assets,...

For many countries, the most significant barriers to trade in financial assets have been knocked down. Yet, the financial world is not flat because poor governance prevents firms from being widely held and from taking full advantage of financial globalization. Poor governance has implications...

We study the effect of asset tangibility on corporate financing and investment decisions. Financially constrained firms benefit the most from investing in tangible assets because those assets help relax constraints, allowing for further investment. Using a dynamic model, we characterize this...

Foreign banks pulled significant funding from their U.S. branches during the Great Recession. We estimate that the average-sized branch experienced a 12 percent net internal fund "withdrawal," with the fund transfer disproportionately bigger for larger branches. This internal shock to the...

Global banks played a significant role in the transmission of the 2007 to 2009 crisis to emerging market economies. We examine the relationships between adverse liquidity shocks on main developed-country banking systems to emerging markets across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, isolating loan...

This paper proposes a theory of corporate liquidity demand and provides new evidence on corporate cash policies. Firms have access to valuable investment opportunities, but potentially cannot fund them with the use of external finance. Firms that are financially unconstrained can undertake all...

Much of corporate finance is concerned with the impact of financing constraints on firms. However, the literature on financing constraints largely ignores the intertemporal implications of those constraints; in particular, how future financing constraints affect current investment decisions. We...

We compare the governance of foreign firms to the governance of similar U.S. firms. Using an index of firm governance attributes, we find that, on average, foreign firms have worse governance than matching U.S. firms. Roughly 8% of foreign firms have better governance than comparable U.S. firms....

Behavioral finance models imply that an increase in shares outstanding leads to a lower stock price for firms with greater diversity in opinion among investors. Information asymmetry models imply that share issues by firms with greater information asymmetries are accompanied by larger share...