This paper evaluates the influence of financial contracting costs on the propensity for public corporations to lease fixed capital. We argue that firms facing high costs of external credit, due either to severe asymmetric information or agency costs can economize on the cost of credit by...

Data obtained from special questions on the Michigan Survey of Consumer Attitudes over several years are used to analyze stock market beliefs and portfolio choices of household investors. Consistent with other survey results, expected future returns appear to be extrapolated from past realized...

This paper establishes empirically that specialization in private-market corporate lending exists, adding a new dimension to the public vs. private debt distinctions now common in the literature on debt contracting and financial intermediation. Using a large database of individual loans, we...