We use the staggered introduction of a major financial reporting regulation worldwide to study whether firms make financing decisions consistent with the pecking order theory. Exploiting cross-country and within country-year variation, we document that treated firms increase their issuance of...

I examine whether lender incentives are related to the redaction or non-disclosure of potentially material information from credit agreements of public firms. Using a novel dataset, I find evidence that when lenders invest more in screening and monitoring the borrower or when lenders earn...

A longstanding question is why an important fraction of public companies pay relatively large amounts in taxes, apparently forgoing the benefits of tax avoidance. This study finds that firms with high effective tax rates are, to some extent, unsuccessful tax avoiders. These firms engage in tax...

I investigate whether and how syndicate size influences the type of covenants used in debt contracts. Prior theory and evidence suggest that renegotiation considerations from coordination difficulties in large syndicates and intertemporal transfers due to relationship lending in small syndicates...

We examine whether firms hold more cash in the face of tax uncertainty. Because of gray areas in the tax law and aggressive tax avoidance, the total amount of tax that a firm will pay is uncertain at the time it files its returns. The tax authorities can challenge and disallow the firm's tax...

We study the voting rules to modify, amend, and renegotiate syndicated loan contracts. We base our hypotheses on a model that shows how amendment thresholds can mitigate agency conflicts within the lending syndicate. Consistent with our model predictions, we find that voting rules are more...