Corporate leverage among emerging market firms went up considerably after the 2007–09 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). We investigate how the increased emerging market corporate leverage in the post-GFC period (2010–15)impacted the underlying credit risk, compared to the pre-GFC (2002–2006)...

Using a cross-country sample of mergers and acquisitions, we examine the role of cultural, institutional, geographic and managerial factors on post-merger default risk. Our results are consistent with the asymmetric hypothesis that managers take advantage of the overvaluation and volatility of...