We examine how accounting-based compensation plans influence a firm's contracts with its creditors. After granting long-term accounting-based compensation plans (LTAPs) to CEOs, firms pay lower spreads and have fewer restrictive covenants in new bank loans. Mechanisms leading to lower borrowing...

The literature on income smoothing focuses on the effect of earnings smoothing on the equity market. This paper investigates the effect of income smoothing on the debt market. Using the Tucker-Zarowin (TZ) statistic of income smoothing, we find that firms with higher income smoothing rankings...