We show how the prospect of disputes over firms' revenue reports promotes debt financing over equity. This is demonstrated in a costly state verification model with a risk averse entrepreneur. The prospect of disputes encourages incentive contracts that limit penalties and avoid stochastic...

We show how the prospect of disputes over firms' revenue reports promotes debt financing over equity. These findings are presented within a costly state verification model with a risk averse entrepreneur. The prospect of disputes encourages incentive contracts that limit penalties and avoid...

Our paper provides a complete characterization of leverage and default in binomial economies with financial assets serving as collateral. Our Binomial No-Default Theorem states that any equilibrium is equivalent (in real allocations and prices) to another equilibrium in which there is no...

I develop a highly tractable dynamic general equilibrium model with collateralized lending and securitization in which asset-backed securities (ABS) function as a mechanism for risk sharing. Entrepreneurs who face aggregate and idiosyncratic investment risks can borrow from a menu of...

We show how the prospect of disputes over firms' revenue reports promotes debt financing over equity. These findings are presented within a costly state verification model with a risk averse entrepreneur. The prospect of disputes encourages incentive contracts that limit penalties and avoid...

Our paper provides a complete characterization of leverage and default in binomial economies with financial assets serving as collateral. Our Binomial No-Default Theorem states that any equilibrium is equivalent (in real allocations and prices) to another equilibrium in which there is no...

Many capital structures implicitly or explicitly give agents the ability to use debt contracts as collateral for other financial promises. We study the effects of allowing debt to be used as collateral in a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents, collateralized financial contracts,...

We discuss how leverage can be monitored for institutions, individuals, and assets. While traditionally the interest rate has been regarded as the important feature of a loan, we argue that leverage is sometimes even more important. Monitoring leverage provides information about how risk builds...

Our paper provides a complete characterization of leverage and default in binomial economies with financial assets serving as collateral. First, our Binomial No-Default Theorem states that any equilibrium is equivalent (in real allocations and prices) to another equilibrium in which there is no...

We show that binomial economies with financial assets are an informative and tractable model to study endogenous leverage and collateral equilibrium: endogenous leverage can be highly volatile, but it is always easy to compute. The possibility of default can have a dramatic effect on...