Does more leverage always worsen the debt agency problem? This paper presents a unified analysis that accounts for both risk-shifting and under-investment debt agency problems. For firms with positive marginal volatility of investment (defined as the change in cash flow volatility corresponding...

We examine stock market behavior around earnings announcements in three countries with different degrees of government involvement with corporations. We find evidence consistent with insider trading in shares of politically connected Indonesian companies. We find little comparable evidence for...

This study documents that the stability of institutional ownership plays an important role in determining the cost of debt. After controlling for other determinants of the cost of debt, and correcting for the endogeneity of institutional ownership stability, three major results are uncovered....

This dissertation has three chapters. Each chapter focus on separate issues in corporate finance. The first chapter studies how information production is allocated between buy-side and sell-side firms when identical information-producing agents can choose to be either sell-side analysts or...

We develop a model in which individual and institutional reputation concerns conflict with one another to study why investment bank reputation concerns may have diminished in recent years. Unproven but talented bankers have incentive to signal their ability through actions that may or may not...

We present a model that explains why investment bankers struggle to manage conflicts of interest. Banks can build a type reputation for technical competence by performing complex deals that may not serve their clients' interest; on the other hand, banks can sustain a behavioral reputation by...