In this article, I explore potentially significant links between tangible insolvency, leverage and firm failure and what they might mean for the Chapter 11 plan confirmation process and feasibility testing. My preliminary analysis confirms that debtors emerging with tangibly insolvent and...

This study compares the valuations of debtors emerging from Chapter 11 with the valuations of similar publicly traded firms. For each debtor in my sample, I collect valuation experts' enterprise and equity valuations that are judicially confirmed and based on managements' published financial...

Changes in collateralization have been implicated in significant default (or near-default) events during the financial crisis, most notably with AIG. We have developed a framework for quantifying this effect based on moving between Merton-type and Black-Cox-type structural default models. Our...

Financial globalization has given an impetus to the development and innovation in financial products. However, at the same time, it has complicated banking regulations and its consequent risk management mechanisms. The GFC and consequent Basel III have accentuated the importance of operational...

A recent article in the Journal of Public Economics has asserted, among other things, that government venture capital funds in Europe have crowded out private venture capital. In this research note, I explain that the findings in that paper are based on empirical measures that are completely...

There are few things more constant in life than the rise and fall of financial markets. When markets crash, however, we are forced to restore them while learning from our mistakes. In the wake of the recent subprime mortgage crisis, Congress has drastically but deservedly overhauled the...

As observed in at least the last two decades, financial engineering has not only changed the way in which business is conducted in the finance world, but also the daily life of the average citizen in the leading economies. Structured products have been deemed weapons of mass destruction in some...

During 1980-2000, an average of 310 companies per year went public in the U.S. Since the technology bubble burst in 2000, the average has been only 99 initial public offerings (IPOs) per year, with the drop especially precipitous among small firms. Many have blamed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002...

In this paper we address the magnitude of debt-related tax shields employing a proprietary data set of 56 German leveraged buyouts (LBOs) completed between 1997 and 2011. In particular we examine the relevance and performance contribution of tax shields under different financing policies, and...

I address why IPO volume, and especially small company IPO volume, has been so depressed for more than a decade. The conventional wisdom is that the main culprits are a combination of heavy-handed regulation, especially the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, a decline in analyst coverage of small...