Recent years have seen a sharp decline in the use of balance sheet-based covenants in private debt contracts. I hypothesize that changes in accounting standards can explain part of this decline. Standard setting has shifted towards a “balance sheet approach”, which I predict has made the...

I document the variation in measurement of financial covenants, focusing on three measurement rules: earnings (EBITDA vs. EBIT), firm value (including or excluding intangible assets) and inclusion of escalator clauses (provisions that increase the threshold of net worth covenants). I find that...