We study the impact of the COVID-19 recession on capital structure of publicly listed U.S. firms. Our estimates suggest leverage (Net Debt/Asset) decreased by 5.3 percentage points from the pre-shock mean of 19.6 percent, while debt maturity increased moderately. This de-leveraging effect is...

The objective of this paper to investigate the effectiveness of credit easing policy in mitigating the economic fallout from a financial recession using a model that can account for the observed default and leverage dynamics during the financial crisis of 2007. A general equilibrium model is...

At the macro level, recent policy-relevant research establishes an association between credit booms and banking distress; the focus is on leverage. However, scant evidence is available at the micro level. This study analyses the relationship between lending growth, leverage, and distress at the...

We examine the mechanism through which a financial crisis affects the default risk of real economy firms. We find that firms with strong dependence on bank financing suffer from higher increases in default risk than firms with no such dependence. Conversely, firms that rely solely on financing...