Graham and Harveys (2001) survey evidence and Baker, Greenwood, and Wurgler (2003) indicate that firm managers try to time debt markets based on term spreads or excess bond returns when choosing the maturity of new debt issues. Whether debt market timing increases firm value via a reduced cost...

This dissertation examines corporate use of derivative instruments and multi-period hedging methods. It studies the use of linear (e.g. futures) and nonlinear (e.g. options) derivatives in a sample of 382 U.S. non-financial firms (920 firm-year observations) between 1992 and 1996. It also...