Drawing on a large sample of defaulted corporate debt from 1996 to 2007, we find that the debt recovery estimated using the Leland-Toft endogenous bankruptcy model has strong explanatory power on the debt recovery observed in the market. Our results hold after firm characteristics, industry...

Millions of Americans have negative housing equity, meaning that the outstanding balance on their mortgage exceeds their home's current market value. Our data show that the overwhelming majority of these households will not lose their homes. Our finding is consistent with historical evidence: we...