The COVID-19 pandemic represented the emergence of an enormous, systemic, and largely un-anticipated economic risk. It upended entire industries on a global scale, shuttered millions of businesses by government order, and left millions more struggling to adapt to unforeseen and rapidly changing...

We examine how accounting-based compensation plans influence a firm's contracts with its creditors. After granting long-term accounting-based compensation plans (LTAPs) to CEOs, firms pay lower spreads and have fewer restrictive covenants in new bank loans. Mechanisms leading to lower borrowing...

In this study we investigate how executive equity incentives affect companies' risk-taking behavior in relationships with their customers. We hypothesize and find that executive risk-taking incentives provided by options are positively related to the degree of trade credit riskiness measured...

We develop a model of managerial compensation structure and asset risk choice. The model provides predictions about how inside debt features affect the relation between credit spreads and compensation components. First, inside debt reduces credit spreads only if it is unsecured. Second, inside...

This study examines the relation between narrative risk disclosures in mandatory reports and the pricing of credit risk. In particular, we investigate whether and how the SEC mandate of risk factor disclosures (RFDs) affects credit default swap (CDS) spreads. Based on the theory of Duffie and...

Prior studies show that a lender's incentive to monitor a client's activities declines after receiving insurance on its loan via a credit default swap (CDS). We examine whether this altered debtor-creditor relation affects borrowers' investment activities. We hypothesize that the borrower...

This paper investigates the causal effects of voluntary information disclosures on a bank's expected default probability, enterprise risk, and value. I measure disclosure via a self-constructed index for the largest 80 U.S. bank holding companies for the period 1998-2011. I provide evidence that...

We investigate how the availability of traded credit default swaps (CDSs) affects the referenced firms' voluntary disclosure choices. CDSs enable lenders to hedge their credit risk exposure, weakening their incentives to monitor borrowers. We predict that reduced lender monitoring in turn leads...

We empirically explore the link between Level 3 fair value estimates and banks' default risk as well as default costs. Both variables are especially important to banks' creditors and the regulatory authorities that rely on the information in financial statements. In a fixed-effects panel model,...

Up to the 2007 crisis, research within bottom‐up CDO models mainly concentrated on the dependence between defaults. However, due to the substantial increase in the market price of systemic credit risk protection, more attention has been paid to recovery rate assumptions.In this paper, we focus...