We explore a model in which agents enter into a contract but are uncertain about how a judge will enforce it. The judge can consider a wide range of evidence, or instead, use a rule-based method of judgment that relies on limited information. We focus on the following tradeoff: Considering a...

We find that corporate loan contracts frequently concentrate control rights with a subset of lenders. Despite the rise in term loans without financial covenants—so-called covenant-lite loans—borrowing firms' revolving lines of credit almost always retain traditional financial covenants. This...

In this paper we examine a model of the optimal financial claim for a bank in a world where a borrowing firm s uninformed stakeholders depend upon the bank for truthful information about the firm s evolving financial condition. In particular, stakeholders rely upon the bank to reveal whether the...