Why do private firms stay private? Empirical evidence on this issue is sparse, as most private firms in the US do not report their financial results. We investigate why private status matters by taking advantage of a unique dataset of large, leveraged private firms with SEC filings. Unlike a...

During the subprime crisis, the Federal Reserve introduced several emergency liquidity programs as supplements to the discount window: TAF, PDCF, and TSLF. Using data on loans to large commercial banks and primary dealers, we find that the programs were used by relatively few institutions and...

This paper investigates the impact of debt covenant protection on the cross section of equity returns with a firm-level covenant index and four sub-indices. We find that firms with weaker covenant protection (lower covenant index levels) earn significantly higher risk-adjusted equity returns...

We propose an equilibrium model for defaultable bonds that are subject to contagion risk. Contagion arises because agents with "fragile beliefs'' are uncertain about the underlying economic state and its probability. Estimation on sovereign European credit default swaps (CDS) data shows that...

Empirical tests of reduced form models of default attribute a large fraction of observed credit spreads to compensation for jump-to-default risk. However, these models preclude a "contagion-risk'' channel, where the aggregate corporate bond index reacts adversely to a credit event. In this...

Using a comprehensive dataset of hedge fund 13F filings, we analyze hedge fund trading from 1998-2010 to determine if investor redemptions cause fire sales and stock market disruptions. We find evidence of hedge fund fire sales in the two quarters with the worst stock market performance. During...

We consider IPO firms from 1970 to 2001 and examine the evolution of their insider ownership over time to understand better why and how U.S. firms that become widely held do so. In our sample, a majority of firms has insider ownership below 20% after ten years. We find that a firm's stock market...

This paper empirically tests five structural models of corporate bond pricing: Those of Merton (1974), Geske (1977), Leland and Toft (1996), Longstaff and Schwartz (1995), and Collin-Dufresne and Goldstein (2001). We implement the models using a sample of 182 bond prices from firms with simple...

This article examines underpricing of initial public offerings (IPOs) and seasoned offerings in the corporate bond market. We investigate whether underpricing represents a solution to an information problem or a liquidity problem. We find that underpricing occurs with both IPOs and seasoned...

Financial firm distress often leads to regulatory intervention, such as ldquo;too big to failrdquo; (TBTF) policies. Two oft-cited channels to justify TBTF are domino effects (counterparty risk) and the effects of fire sales. We analyze the policy responses for avoiding systemic risk while...