As the financial services industry becomes increasingly international, the more narrowly defined and historically protected national financial markets become less significant. Consequently, financial institutions must achieve a critical size in order to compete. Bank Mergers & Acquisitions...

We analyze the link between creditor rights and firms' investment policies, proposing that stronger creditor rights in bankruptcy reduce corporate risk-taking. In cross-country analysis, we find that stronger creditor rights induce greater propensity of firms to engage in diversifying...

We show that stock market liquidity affects subsequent corporate investment and production. Stock illiquidity, which raises the firm's cost of capital, lowers investment in capital assets, R&D, and inventory. This effect holds regardless of the firms' financially constraints. Consequently,...

We investigate how firms manage financial default risk (on debt) and operational default risk (on delivery obligations). Financially constrained firms reduce operational hedging through inventory and supply chain in favor of cash holdings. Our model predicts that firms' markup increases with...