This study examines the influence of a firm's geographical location on corporate debt and provides evidence that the higher cost of collecting information on firms distant from urban areas has significant implications on a wide array of corporate debt characteristics. We find that rural firms...

We document that corporates in emerging markets borrow more in foreign currency when the local currency provides a better hedge in downturns. We develop an international corporate finance model in which firms facing adverse selection choose the foreign currency share of their debt. In the unique...

The role that banks play in screening and monitoring their borrowers is well understood. However, these bank activities are costly and unobservable, thus difficult to contract upon. This introduces the possibility of shirking and leads to the question – who monitors the monitor? Financial...

In this paper we introduce flexibility as an economic concept and apply it to the firm’ssecurity issuance decision and capital structure choice. Flexibility is the ability to makedecisions that one thinks are best even when others disagree. The firm’s management valuesflexibility because it...

We offer evidence of a new stylized feature of corporate financing decisions: the tendency of managers to rely more on debt financing when earnings prospects are poor. We term this 'leaning against the wind' and consider three possible explanations: market timing, precautionary financing, and...

Operating leverage increases profitability and reduces optimal financial leverage. Thus, operating leverage generates a negative relation between profitability and financial leverage that is thought to be inconsistent with the trade-off theory, but is commonly observed in the data. We...

A theory of capital structure in which costs associated with asymmetric information are the sole friction is used to present a new perspective on the standard pecking order theory. In the model, both the amount of debt and the restrictiveness of the associated debt covenants are considered to be...

We present a tradeoff theory of capital structure in which costs associated with asymmetric information are the sole friction. By considering both the amount of debt as well as the restrictiveness of the associated debt covenants a more complete characterization of debt structure is examined...

We propose a theory of optimal firm financing given nested information problems of adverse selection and agency cost. We prove that there exists a unique perfect Bayesian equilibrium with novel features: First, three types of optimal contracts arise endogenously, i.e., equity, transparent debt...