This paper presents evidence that the exposure to automation technologies has a positive impact on a firm's financial leverage. The effects are more pronounced in firms with greater labor costs, routine task intensity, firing costs, and union coverage. The results are robust when we instrument a...

An employee's annual earnings fall by 13% the year her firm files for bankruptcy, and the present value of lost earnings from bankruptcy to six years following bankruptcy is 87% of pre-bankruptcy annual earnings. More worker earnings are lost in thin labor markets and among small firms. Ex ante...

This paper relies on an increasing number of industry equilibrium studies linking a firm to its industry peers to help explain the observed REIT capital structure variation within property segments beyond what is possible with the traditional partial equilibrium trade-off and pecking order...

This paper studies the determinants of corporate hedging practices in the REIT industry between 1999 and 2001. We find a positive significant relation beween hedging and financial leverage, indicating the financial distress costs motive for using derivatives in the REIT industry. Using estimates...