We examine interactions between investment and financing decisions in a dynamic model where the firm can alter the mix of debt and equity financing and exercise a randomly arriving and potentially short lived growth option. The firm will typically finance the exercise of the growth option with...

We study the effects of uncertainty on corporate leverage adjustments with respect to investment spikes and find that overlevered and underlevered firms behave very differently in response to the combination of uncertainty and investment spikes. Overlevered firms facing high uncertainty converge...

We present a stochastic simulation model for estimating forward-looking corporate probability of default and loss given default. We formulate the model in a discrete time frame, apply capital-budgeting techniques to define the relationships that identify the default condition, and solve the...

De- and re-levering betas is important to obtain discount rates for assets that are not publicly traded. A de- and re-levering procedure is around for the case of risk-free debt. The procedure for risky debt is much less clear even under very simplifying assumptions. In this paper, I concretize...

This paper examines the dynamic relationship between firm leverage and risktaking. We embed the traditional agency problem of asset substitution within a multi-period model, revealing a U-shaped relationship between leverage and risktaking, evident in data from both the U.S. and Europe. Firms...

In this paper, we study how legal uncertainty affects economic activity. We develop a parsimonious model with different types of legal uncertainty that reduce economic activity and that can be classified as idiosyncratic (i.e., diversifiable) or systematic (i.e., nondiversifiable). We test the...

IPO firms with high-powered CEO incentive contracts have lower failure rates in the aftermarket. Economically, an interquartile change in the distribution of CEO pay translates in a reduction of the failure risk probability by approximately 21%. The Pay Gap between the CEO and its subordinate...

Why and when do firms optimally deviate from target cash? And why do we observe imperfect adjustment of cash? In this paper, we postulate and provide evidence that policy uncertainty induces financing frictions and adjustment costs which decelerate the speed of adjustment (SOA) of cash toward...

Risk is a vital concept to grasp when investing in a firm or project. It is also a key ingredient required to evaluate the cost of capital and perform a valuation. An organization’s capital structure, specifically the amount of leverage and debt financing employed, must be accounted for to...

Firms obtain noisy estimates of investors' required rates of return (discount rates) using market-based information. Discounted-cash-flow (DCF) methods, as commonly taught in MBA courses, lead to upward-biased estimates of project values in the presence of such noise, even when cash flow and...