We argue that the prospect of an imperfect enforcement of debt contracts in default reduces shareholder-debtholder conflicts and induces leveraged firms to invest more and take on less risk as they approach financial distress. To test these predictions, we use a large panel of firms in 41...

Textbook theory assumes that firm managers maximize the net present value of future cash flows. But when you ask them, the people running large public corporations say that they are maximizing something else entirely: earnings per share (EPS). Perhaps this is a mistake. No matter. We take...

A common method of valuing the equity in highly leveraged transactions is the flows-to-equity method. When applying this method various formulas can be used to calculate the time-varying cost of equity. In this paper we show that some commonly used formulas are inconsistent with the assumptions...

The book proposes an original contribution to the economics and finance literature by developing the foundations of corporate finance. It also covers in detail various corporate governance issues faced by organizations. The common treatment of corporate finance and corporate governance started...

This article analyzes the manifold situations in which the efficient-market hypothesis (EMH) has influenced — or has failed to influence — federal securities regulation and state corporate law, and the prospective roles for the EMH in these contexts. In federal securities regulation, the EMH...

In a typical "phoenix syndrome" scenario, a small business entrepreneur who controls the financially distressed Company A registers Company B, to which the assets of Company A are transferred in what appears to be fraudulent conveyance. Company B serves as a vehicle through which the business is...

A simple contracting environment with a creditor who has wealth and a entrepreneur who has a two-period investment project is studied. After observing the partial completion of the project at the end of first period, the creditor may decide whether to refinance it or liquidate it. Contracting is...

We examine the effectiveness of debt covenants in alleviating financial agency problems. Distortions in both investment and financing policies with long--term debt are captured in a structural dynamic model where both policies are endogenously determined by shareholders. The combined and...

Cost stickiness measures the degree of suboptimal cost reduction in response to a decline in a firm's activity. This study examines the role of institutional monitoring in addressing the value-decreasing cost-stickiness problem exhibited in many firms. Using alternative proxies for institutional...