We examine the ex ante effect of an exogenous reduction in secured creditor rights on corporate financial and investment policy. We find that firms increase corporate leverage using both the reduced distress costs of secured debt and the positive externalities the lower secured creditor rights...

Secured lenders have recently demanded a new condition in distressed debt restructurings: competing secured lenders must lose priority. We model the implications of this "creditor-on-creditor violence" trend. In our dynamic model, secured lenders enjoy higher priority in default. However,...

Stronger creditor rights reduce credit costs and thus may allow firms to increase leverage and investments, but also increase distress costs and thus may prompt firms to lower leverage and undertake risk-reducing but unprofitable investments. Using a German bankruptcy law reform, on average, we...

In recent years, acquisition made by distressed firms have become economically important. This paper explores the rationale behind such acquisitions using a natural experiment. Exploiting a recent tax change, which reduces debt restructuring costs for certain creditors and decreases bankruptcy...

Legal rules play a powerful but understudied role in security design. This article presents two new theoretical results about the design of debt contracts. The results derive from the premise that firms must avoid legal insolvency when issuing new debt because insolvency at issuance would...

We investigate how idiosyncratic lender shocks impact corporate investment. Lenders with recent default experience write stricter loan contracts, leading to a reduction in real investment for borrowing firms. The decline in investment is not attributable to loan riskiness, borrower's agency...

This paper analyzes whether the financial distress of a firm affects the investment decisions of non-distressed competitors. On average, firms in distress impose indirect costs to non-distressed competitors by increasing costs of credit in the industry and hence restricting credit access and...

This paper studies the impact of executive pensions and deferred compensation plans, collectively known as "inside debt'', on corporate failures. I find that, on average, a firm whose CEO holds a larger fraction of the firm's debt than equity (i.e., when the ratio of the CEO's inside debt...

I empirically test whether firms engage in risk-shifting. Contrary to what risk-shifting theory predicts, I find that firms reduce investment risk when they approach financial distress. To identify the effect of distress on risk-taking, I use a natural experiment with exogenous changes to...

We present a stochastic simulation model for estimating forward-looking corporate probability of default and loss given default. We formulate the model in a discrete time frame, apply capital-budgeting techniques to define the relationships that identify the default condition, and solve the...