This paper shows that the behavior of entrepreneurs facing incomplete financial markets and risky investment can explain why growth accelerations in developing countries tend to be associated with current account improvements. The uninsurable risk of losing invested capital forces entrepreneurs...

This paper investigates the role of tax incentives towards debt finance in the buildup of leverage in the nonfinancial corporate (NFC) sector, using a large firm-level dataset. We find that so-called debt bias is a significant driver of leverage, for both small and medium-sized enterprises and...

This paper analyzes the importance of information technology (IT) in banking for entrepreneurship. To guide our empirical analysis, we build a parsimonious model of bank screening and lending that predicts that IT in banking can spur entrepreneurship by making it easier for startups to borrow...

We study the impact of the COVID-19 recession on capital structure of publicly listed U.S. firms. Our estimates suggest leverage (Net Debt/Asset) decreased by 5.3 percentage points from the pre-shock mean of 19.6 percent, while debt maturity increased moderately. This de-leveraging effect is...

We explore empirically how the time-varying allocation of credit across firms with heterogeneous credit quality matters for financial stability outcomes. Using firm-level data for 55 countries over 1991-2016, we show that the riskiness of credit allocation, captured by Greenwood and Hanson...

This paper uses a multi-region, forward-looking, DSGE model to estimate the macroeconomic impact of a tax reform that replaces a corporate income tax (CIT) with a destination-based cash-flow tax (DBCFT). Two key channels are at play. The first channel is the shift from an income tax to a...

Traditional measures of leverage in the financial system tend to reflect bank balance sheet data. The paper argues that these traditional, bank-centric measures should be augmented by considering pledged collateral in the financial system since pledged collateral provides a measure of an...

This paper constructs a theoretical framework that rationalizes banks’ short- and long-run adjustment dynamics—in portfolio composition and in the capital structure—following a period of financial distress. The model captures stylized facts about banks’ behavior following a shock to the...

This paper uses U.S. panel data to estimate the effect of expected effective corporate tax rates on firm’s leverage. The paper directly estimates expected corporate tax rates using rational expectations. The estimated measures of the expected effective tax rates of firms are related to a...

We provide a theoretical foundation for the claim that prolonged periods of easy monetary conditions increase bank risk taking. The net effect of a monetary policy change on bank monitoring (an inverse measure of risk taking) depends on the balance of three forces: interest rate pass-through,...