particular, the interplay between government debt and private leverage is attracting increasing attention in the current context …The policy focus on excessive leverage in the euro area has raised interest in developing comprehensive analytical … approaches to better understand the interrelationship between leverage and deleveraging processes across economic agents. In …

enhance its bargaining power during negotiations with non-financial stakeholders. I show that reimbursement rates negotiated … between a hospital and insurers for a specific procedure are higher when the hospital has more debt. I show that this effect … provide direct evidence that debt improves a firm's bargaining outcomes …