A common method of valuing the equity in highly leveraged transactions is the flows-to-equity method. When applying this method various formulas can be used to calculate the time-varying cost of equity. In this paper we show that some commonly used formulas are inconsistent with the assumptions...

This paper proposes a machine learning approach to estimate physical forward default intensities. Default probabilities are computed using artificial neural networks to estimate the intensities of the inhomogeneous Poisson processes governing default process. The major contribution to previous...

Credit default swaps (CDSs) can create empty creditors who may push borrowers into inefficient bankruptcy but also reduce shareholders' incentives to default strategically. We show theoretically and empirically that the presence and the effects of empty creditors on firm outcomes depend on the...

Return anomalies are most pronounced among distressed stocks. We attribute this finding to the role of misvaluation and investors' inability to value distressed stocks correctly. We treat distressed stocks as options and construct a valuation model that explicitly takes into account the value of...

This paper empirically analyses the effect of foreign block acquisitions on the U.S. target firms' credit risk as captured by their CDS. The involvement of foreign investors leads to a significant increase in the target firms' CDS spreads. This effect is stronger when foreign owners are...

We develop statistical methods to detect informed trading in options markets. We apply these methods to 31 companies from various sectors over 14 years analyzing approximately 9.6 million option prices. We find that option informed trading tends to cluster prior to certain events, takes place...

This appendix extends the empirical results in Chesney, Crameri, and Mancini (2011). Informed trading activities on put and call options are analyzed for 19 companies in the banking and insurance sectors from January 1996 to September 2009. Our empirical findings suggest that certain events such...

We develop a dynamic tradeoff model to examine the importance of manager-shareholder conflicts in capital structure choice. Using panel data on leverage choices and the model's predictions for different statistical moments of leverage, we show that while refinancing costs help explain the...

This paper considers changes in market comovement of merging US firms. Comparing the expected to the actual post merger comovement, we find that the post merger beta exhibits excess comovement with the acquiring firm. This suggests that the firm's comovement is at least partly determined by its...

This study investigates the influence of creditor control rights on the pricing of corporate loans. We construct a novel dataset that combines hand-collected covenant violations data with individual borrowers, creditors, and loan contract information. Our data allows us to distinguish between...