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 survey 79 private equity (PE) investors with combined assets under management of more than $750 billion about their practices in firm valuation, capital structure, governance, and value creation. Investors rely primarily on internal rates of return and multiples to evaluate investments. Their...

We examine how legal creditor rights are related to debt financing and corporate investment over the business cycle. Using firm-level data from 40 countries, we find that creditor rights are associated with greater debt financing and investment during economic downturns, but creditor rights have...

We empirically examine theories of secured debt. Credit risk and asset volatility increase with secured debt issuance, and the strength of this association is unrelated to contemporaneous investment. Hand-collected data reveals most secured debt is secured on all assets of the firm and rarely...

The popular weighted average cost of capital (WACC) approach to capital budgeting implicitly assumes that a project's debt tax shields will always be used by the firm that adopts the project. We show that even a low probability of selling a project in the future to a firm with a different tax...

We examine firms' simultaneous choice of investment, debt financing and liquidity in a large sample of US corporates between 1980 and 2014. We partition the sample according to the firms' financial constraints and their needs to hedge against future shortfalls in operating income. In contrast to...

This paper investigates the link between corporate debt and investment for a group of five peripheral euro area countries. Using firm-level data from 2005-2014, we postulate a non-linear corporate leverage-investment relationship and derive thresholds beyond which leverage has a negative and...

Objective - The aims to identify the significant factors that influence a company's decision to use debt capital.Methodology/Technique - This study uses 5 independent variables namely; firm growth (growth rate in total gross assets), asset tangibility (ratio of net fixed assets to total assets),...

The maintenance of financial liquidity, stability, profitability and the value and investment capabilities of a company as well as the avoidance of financial bottlenecks are the most vital objectives of people in charge of ac ompany, especially in times of crisis. This paper presents the...

Employees of liquidating firms are likely to lose income and non-pecuniary benefits of working for the firm, which makes bankruptcy costly for employees. This paper examines whether firms take these costs into account when deciding on the optimal amount of leverage. We find that firms with...