We use a unique dataset to show how firms in Europe used credit lines during the financial crisis. We find that firms with restricted access to credit (small, private, non-investment grade, and unprofitable) draw more funds from their credit lines during the crisis than their large, public,...

This paper uses a unique dataset to study how firms managed liquidity during the financial crisis. Our analysis provides new insights on the interactions between internal liquidity, external funds, and real corporate decisions, such as investment and employment. We first describe how companies...

This paper relies on an increasing number of industry equilibrium studies linking a firm to its industry peers to help explain the observed REIT capital structure variation within property segments beyond what is possible with the traditional partial equilibrium trade-off and pecking order...

We characterize the relation between asset structure and capital structure by exploiting variation in the salability of corporate assets. Theory suggests that asset tangibility increases borrowing capacity because it allows creditors to more easily repossess a firm's assets. Tangible assets,...

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) pay no corporate taxes, yet surprisingly, their average leverage ratio is more than twice that of taxable firms (46% vs. 20%). We develop and test a model that helps explain this puzzle. The primary result of the model is that credit constrained firms'...