Financial contracts that mitigate incentive conflicts between firms and their creditors have a large impact on employees. Using a regression discontinuity design, we provide evidence that there are sharp and substantial employment cuts following loan covenant violations, when creditors gain...

This paper studies whether financial contracts exacerbate or mitigate agency conflicts among stakeholders. We consider a specific contractual provision, debt covenants, and examine how, by allocating control rights between shareholders and debtholders, debt covenants affect the employment...