We analyze a reform of insurance companies' capital requirements for mortgage-backed securities. First, credit ratings were replaced as inputs to capital regulation. Second, the redesigned system ensures capital buffers sufficient to withstand expected losses, but insufficient to protect against...

Reaching-for-yield--investors' propensity to buy riskier assets in order to achieve higher yields--is believed to be an important factor contributing to the credit cycle. This paper presents a detailed study of this phenomenon in the corporate bond market. We show that insurance companies, the...

We use an important legal event to examine the effect of managerial fiduciary duties on equity-debt conflicts. A 1991 legal ruling changed corporate directors' fiduciary duties in Delaware firms, limiting managers' incentives to take actions that favor equity over debt for distressed firms....

We use the Business Roundtable’s challenge to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) 2010 proxy access rule as a natural experiment to measure the value of shareholder proxy access. We find that firms that would have been most vulnerable to proxy access, as measured by...

We quantify fluctuations in bank-loan supply in the time-series by studying firms' substitution between loans and bonds using firm-level data. Any firm that raises new debt must have a positive demand for external funds. Conditional on the issuance of new debt, we interpret firms' switching from...

In many countries, bankruptcy is associated with low recovery by creditors. We develop a model of corporate credit markets in such an environment. Corporate credit is provided by either a bond market or risk-averse banks. Restructuring of insolvent firms happens out of court if in-court...

Using new data on the wealth of Swedish CEOs, I show that higher wealth CEOs receive stronger incentives. Since high wealth (excluding own-firm holdings) implies low absolute risk aversion, this is consistent with a risk aversion explanation. To examine whether wealth is likely to proxy for...