We investigate how bankers use private information to help borrowers combine resources in strategic alliances. Firms that have borrowed from the same banker are significantly more likely to enter an alliance. Even indirect connections through a banker network can facilitate alliances. Consistent...

Using data from the US syndicated loan market, we find women to be underrepresented among senior commercial bankers. This gap persists due to unequal promotion rates for men and women at the same institution in the same year, and cannot be explained by different individual or managerial...

We estimate the impact of U.S. state court characteristics on firm value by exploiting a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that exogenously changed firms‘ exposure to different courts. We find that increased exposure to more business-friendly courts is associated with positive announcement returns. We...

We exploit a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on diversity of citizenship in legal disputes to estimate the contribution of the court system to firm value. In an event study, we find that an increase in state court quality from bottom to top tercile is associated with an average increase in equity...