We document empirically the determinants of the observed recovery rates on defaulted securities in the United States over the period 1982–1999. The recovery rates are measured using the prices of defaulted securities at the time of default and at the time of emergence from default or from...

In a simple firm value model we consider the impact of the insolvency probability on the valuation of equity and debt, which are assumed to be not publicly traded. For the case of a distressed company, which usually has high debt and low equity, we can show that the impact becomes increasingly...

We present the puzzling evidence that, from 1962 to 2009, an average 10.2% of large public nonfinancial US firms have zero debt and almost 22% have less than 5% book leverage ratio. Zero-leverage behavior is a persistent phenomenon. Dividend-paying zero-leverage firms pay substantially higher...

This article analyzes the manifold situations in which the efficient-market hypothesis (EMH) has influenced—or has failed to influence—federal securities regulation and state corporate law, and the prospective roles for the EMH in these contexts. In federal securities regulation, the EMH has...

I find that approximately 40 percent of the momentum profit is generated by firms that are delisted from the market during the holding period, although the proportion of these firms in the momentum portfolio is around 10 percent. Most of the delisting-profit is derived from bankrupt firms, while...

A frictionless, structural view of default has the unrealistic implication that recovery rates on bonds, measured at default, should be close to 100 percent. This suggests that standard quot;frictionsquot; such as default delays, corporate-valuation jumps, and bankruptcy costs may be important...

In recent years, a number of papers have established a new empirical regularity. Stocks of distressed firms vastly underperform those of financially healthy firms. It is not necessary to attribute the negative excess returns of distressed firms to inefficient or irrational markets. We show that...

We document the puzzling evidence that, from 1962 to 2009, an average 10.2% of large public non-financial U.S. firms have zero debt and almost 22% have less than 5% book leverage ratio. Zero-leverage behavior is a persistent phenomenon. Dividend-paying zero-leverage firms pay substantially...

Previous studies of corporate stock repurchase programs found low efficiency (high execution cost), questionable performance (inconsistent profitability), idiosyncratic transaction reporting (monthly cost reports may not match actual monthly transactions), archaic shareholder accounting...

We examine the impact of the alignment of internal control mechanisms (governance and management control systems) with external control mechanisms on market valuation and operating performance for 1,693 firm observations over the period 2000-2006 in high versus low-growth industries. The...