I assess empirically the implications of patent grants for corporate financing, investment and stock returns. I show that industry patents are associated with more firm-level equity issues and reduced leverage. Firms in industries with more patents issue more equity at a given point in time....

We study the role of domestic financial institutions in sustaining capital flows to the private and public sector of a country whose government can default on its debt. As in recent public debt crises, in our model public defaults weaken banks' balance sheets, disrupting domestic financial...

We document the frequent use of stock lockup agreements in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) paid in stock and examine the corporate determinants and consequences of lockups’ use and duration. Lockup agreements prohibit target shareholders from selling shares issued by the acquirer as means of...

Using a comprehensive sample of takeovers from 1983 to 2016, we show that credit market conditions drive takeover activity. A deterioration in the aggregate credit quality of corporate bond issuers is associated with a large increase in aggregate deal value for all takeovers, and the strongest...

We analyze holdings of public bonds by over 20,000 banks in 191 countries, and the role of these bonds in 20 sovereign defaults over 1998-2012. Banks hold many public bonds (on average 9% of their assets), particularly in less financially-developed countries. During sovereign defaults, banks...

We study the role of insurance companies in propagating liquidity shocks to the real economy. We use natural disasters as our instrument to identify exogenous shifts in capital market liquidity, and study whether capital market liquidity affects regional-level fiscal conditions and drives GDP...

We study the determinants of mergers and acquisitions around the world by focusing on differences in laws and regulation across countries. We find that the volume of Mamp;A activity is significantly larger in countries with better accounting standards and stronger shareholder protection. The...

In a financial contracting model we study the optimal debt structure to resolve financial distress. We show that a debt structure where two distinct debt classes co-exist - one class fully concentrated and with control rights upon default, the other dispersed and without control rights - removes...