We provide evidence that existing studies relating financial condition to product market cooperation produce mixed results because of unique features of the industries examined. In particular, all evidence suggesting that poor financial condition decreases cooperation comes from the airline...

Given equity's convex payoff function, shareholders can transfer wealth from bondholders by increasing firm risk. We test the existing hypothesis that convertible debt reduces this classical agency problem of risk-shifting. First, we derive a measure of shareholders' risk incentives induced by...

In this paper, we examine whether a firm's relationship with its principal customers/suppliers affects its payout policies. A firm has customer–supplier relationships when its business depends on a small number of major customers/suppliers. The extant literature indicates two channels through...

In this article, we show that only distressed firms not identified as distressed by creditors are able to transfer wealth from creditors to shareholders. Using the number of years to future bankruptcy as a proxy for genuine distress and measures based on observable firm characteristics as...

We investigate how institutional factors influence the behavior of distressed firms in emerging markets, where bankruptcy laws are often weak and debtors have greater bargaining power in distress. By studying two comprehensive samples of distressed firms in China, we find that local government...

I study firms with past asbestos ties that suffer from significant increases in legal liabilities after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1999. This event provides a natural experiment setting to estimate the indirect effects of financial distress on real activities. While direct litigation and...

This paper examines the evolution of corporate boards following a large performance decline. Over 40% of the original directors depart the board during the three years following underperformance. Measures of initial CEO influence over the board such as CEO ownership are associated with smaller...

In this study, we investigate financial distress risks of European companies around the buyout event in the period between 2000 and 2008. In addition, we analyze whether buyout companies go bankrupt more often than comparable non-buyout companies. Our results suggest that private equity...

In this study I empirically examine U.S. publicly traded firms to determine the impact of banking relationships on the future of financially distressed firms. Results demonstrate that obtaining a relationship-backed loan in the six months prior to distress identification significantly increases...