We investigate the informational content of credit default swap (CDS) spreads for future volatility of (firm) assets and equity. In the cross-section, CDS spreads are significantly more informative about future asset than equity volatility. The informational content of historical and option...

This paper studies a firmś optimal capital structure in an environment, where the firmś stock price serves as a public signal for its credit worthiness. In equilibrium, equity investors choose how much information to acquire privately, which induces a positive relation between the amount of...

This paper examines the cross-sectional relation between leverage and future stock returns. Prior research documents a puzzling negative correlation. We show that it is largely caused by firms' use of internal financing when having significant off-balance-sheet operating assets due to...

This paper examines the relationship between capital structure and shareholder returns in the UK between 1980 and 2008. Expanding on Modigliani and Miller's (1958) Proposition 2, returns are estimated using the asset pricing models of CAPM, Fama and French and of Carhart. The analysis shows that...

This study uses 469,816 monthly observations of US public firms for the period 1990-2018 to document a strong positive relationship between short-term changes in financial distress risk and future stock price crashes. This result is economically significant as a one interquartile increase of the...

We develop an asset-pricing model with endogenous corporate policies that explains how inflation jointly impacts real asset prices and corporate default risk. Our model includes two empirically grounded nominal frictions: fixed nominal coupons and sticky profitability. Taken together, these two...