We study the leverage of U.S. firms over their life cycles and the connection between firm leverage, firm growth, and aggregate shocks. We construct a new dataset that combines private and public firms’ balance sheets with firm-level data from U.S. Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Business...

A unique legal reform in 2004 in Sweden redistributed collateral rights from banks holding floating liens to unsecured creditors without changing the value of assets on firms' balance sheets. Using a country-wide panel of all incorporated firms, we document that a zero-sum redistribution of...

This paper aims to analyze the effects of financial constraints and the financial crisis on the financing and investment policies of newly founded firms. Thereby, the analysis adds important new insights on a crucial segment of the economy. We make use of a large and comprehensive data set of...

Numerous research papers have used Irish-only data to test for the presence of an investment gap for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In this paper, we use cross country firm-level survey data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys to explore the investment patterns of Irish SMEs in a...

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of easing credit constraints for rural producers in Mexico through loans provided by a national public development finance institution (DFI). In contrast to most of the existing literature, the study focuses on the effect of medium-sized loans over a two-...

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of easing credit constraints for rural producers in Mexico through loans provided by a national public development finance institution. In contrast to most of the existing literature, the study focuses on the effect of medium-sized loans over a two- to...