Firms that undertake corporate events often exhibit atypical financial characteristics, such that future performance might be expected to change even before the event is announced. I investigate five methods for generating control samples in various sampling situations. The results indicate that...

"We find that firms substantially reduce their debt burden in "fresh-start" Chapter 11 reorganizations, yet they emerge with higher debt ratios than what is typical in their respective industries. While cross-sectional regressions reveal that post-reorganization debt ratios are more in line with...