We propose a novel measure of risk perceptions: the price of volatile stocks (PVSt), defined as the book-to-market ratio of low-volatility stocks minus the book-to-market ratio of high-volatility stocks. PVSt is high when perceived risk directly measured from surveys and option prices is low....

This article assesses the cost of bank equity in Spain and the euro area since 2007, focusing particularly on the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a marked rise in the cost of equity in March 2020, followed by a decline in the subsequent months. The article assesses the factors...

We propose and test a new channel that links funding liquidity risk and interest rates in short-term funding markets. Borrowers with high liquidity risk are willing to pay a markup to lock in their funding, independent of risk premiums demanded by lenders. We test the channel using unique...

Standard theory implies that the discount rates used by firms in investment decisions play a key role in determining investment and in transmitting shocks to asset prices and interest rates to the real economy. However, there exists little evidence on how corporate discount rates change over...

Standard theory implies that the discount rates used by firms in investment decisions (i.e., their required returns to capital) determine investment and transmit financial shocks to the real economy. However, there exists little evidence on how firms' discount rates change over time and affect...

How does uncertainty affect the costs of raising finance in the bond market and via bank loans? Empirically, this paper finds that heightened uncertainty is accompanied by an increase in corporate bond yields and a decrease in bank lending rates. This finding can be explained with a model that...

We investigate whether credit rating agencies (CRAs) and investors price the extent to which municipal bond ratings are explainable using public information. We use an ordinal logistic regression to estimate the expected and unexpected portions of bond ratings, and find that both CRA fees and...

Are all covenants equally effective at reducing the bondholder-shareholder conflict? Examining the most frequently used bond covenants, we document that four out of 24 restrictions are associated with significantly higher bankruptcy risk. The use of these Default Indicating covenants can be...

In Poland, more than 90% of electricity production is based on coal fuel. Meanwhile, the financial situation of the mining industry is quite challenging. Companies in this sector are in debt, generating losses caused by a sharp drop in coal prices and a simultaneous increase in extraction costs...

This paper examines the relation between information differences across investors (i.e., information asymmetry) and the cost of capital, and establishes that with perfect competition information asymmetry makes no difference. Instead, a firm's cost of capital is governed solely by the average...