We show that the relative seniority of debt and managerial compensation has important implications on the design of remuneration contracts.Whereas the traditional literature assumes that debt is senior to remuneration, we show that this is frequently not the case according to bankruptcy...

Encouraged by the forbearance of creditors and exit barriers (e.g., inefficient insolvency regimes), the zombie phenomenon has weakened business dynamism and, as a consequence, has slowed economic growth in most economies in recent decades. In this paper, we examine the recovery and exit of...

An employee's annual earnings fall by 13% the year her firm files for bankruptcy, and the present value of lost earnings from bankruptcy to six years following bankruptcy is 87% of pre-bankruptcy annual earnings. More worker earnings are lost in thin labor markets and among small firms. Ex ante...

An important gap exists in modern finance theory on the impact of labour market frictions on corporate debt policy. Unemployment risk is a considerable issue for workers but despite this, workers' unemployment costs are largely absent from corporate financial theories which typically do not...

We examine the employment decisions of Spanish manufacturing firms in financial distress. Our sample comprises 4,566 firms operating during 1983-1994. We find that firms in distress reduce their employment significantly. These reductions are positively associated with asset sales, but cannot be...

An employee's annual earnings fall by 10% the year her firm files for bankruptcy and fall by a present value of 67% over seven years. This effect is more pronounced in thin labor markets and among small firms that are ultimately liquidated. Compensating wage differentials for this “bankruptcy...

Davis, Haltiwanger, Handley, Lerner, Lipsius, and Miranda (2019) produce an extension to the Davis et al. collection without addressing the critical research design issues raised in Ayash and Rastad (2017) and Ayash and Rastad (2018). First and foremost, the authors misrepresent their sample as...

Davis, Haltiwanger, Handley, Jarmin, Lerner, and Miranda (2014) provide evidence that the impact of controversial leveraged buyouts on employment is modest. Our paper challenges this view. We argue that the sample tested in Davis et al. (2014) is not specific to controversial leveraged buyouts...

An employee's annual earnings fall by 13% the year her firm files for bankruptcy, and the present value of lost earnings from bankruptcy to six years following bankruptcy is 87% of pre-bankruptcy annual earnings. More worker earnings are lost in thin labor markets and among small firms. Ex ante...

Davis, Haltiwanger, Handley, Lerner, Lipsius, and Miranda (2021) continue to produce ex- tensions to the Davis, Haltiwanger, Handley, Jarmin, Lerner, and Miranda (2014) collection without addressing the critical research design issues raised in Ayash and Rastad (2017), Ayash and Rastad (2018)...