We study the relationship between corporate debt, corporate risk and firm-level investment, using a sample of 25,000 listed companies across 47 countries over the last two decades. We find higher leverage reduces investment but show the effect varies with risk, as measured by firm time-varying...

This paper explores the impact of risky asset holdings by U.S. nonfinancial firms. From the early 1990s to 2017, the share of risky securities surged from 28% to over 40% of firms' financial assets. Using a business-cycle heterogeneous firms model, I show that declining real interest rates since...

We test one of the main predictions of the financial flexibility paradigm that expectations about future firm-specific shocks affect the firm's leverage. We extract the expectations of small and large future shocks from the market prices of equity options. We find that expectations for future...

Access to external finance is a major obstacle for small and young firms; thus, providing subsidized credit to small and young firms is a widely-used policy option across countries. We study the impact of such targeted policies on aggregate output and productivity and highlight indirect general...

In this paper we study firm dynamics and industry equilibrium when firms under financial distress face a non-trivial choice between alternative bankruptcy procedures. Given limited commitment and asymmetric information, financial contracts specify default, renegotiation and reorganization...

Government policies that attempt to alleviate credit constraints faced by small and young firms are widely adopted across countries. We study the aggregate impact of such targeted credit subsidies in a heterogeneous firm model with collateral constraints and endogenous entry and exit. A defining...

After building up foreign currency-denominated (FC) liabilities over several years, the balance sheets of Colombian firms might be particularly vulnerable to a shift in external conditions. This paper undertakes four exercises in order to get a better understanding of these vulnerabilities....

This paper examines the impact of capital gains taxation on firms’ investment and financing decisions. We develop a real options model in which the timing of investment, the decision to default, and the firm’s capital structure are endogenouslyand jointly determined. Our analysis shows that...

In this article we focus on a representative firm that can decide when to invest under default risk. On the one hand, this firm can benefit from generous tax depreciation allowances, on the other hand it faces a default risk. Our aim is to study the effects of tax depreciation allowances in a...

In this article we use a stochastic model with one representative firm to study business tax policy under default risk. We will show that, for a given tax rate, the government has an incentive to reduce (increase) financial instability and default costs if its objective function is welfare (tax...