We study the effect of a bond's place in its issuer's maturity structure on credit risk. Using a structural model as … motivation, we argue that bonds due relatively late in their issuers' maturity structure have greater credit risk than do bonds …

liquidity, which depends on both the firm fundamental and the time-to-maturity of the bond. Corporate default decisions interact … premium and default premium for credit spreads, we also study the optimal maturity implied by the model based on the tradeoff …

-varying debt maturity choices, as well as its implications for the term structure of credit spreads. Compared to short-term debt … liquidity costs changing over the business cycle, our calibrated model implies that debt maturity is pro-cyclical, firms with … high systematic risk favor longer debt maturity, and that these firms will have more stable maturity structures over the …