Using the NETS database, which covers the universe of establishments in the U.S., we evaluate how shocks that improve credit conditions in a county affect small businesses in that county across different size groups. We find that positive shocks to the county credit environment stimulate the...

In this paper, we evaluate the effect of managerial entrenchment on corporate information production using the voting outcomes of shareholder-initiated proposals intended to mitigate managerial entrenchment. We focus on the proposals that are passed or rejected by a small margin of votes, which...

We investigate whether financial contract terms alter individuals’ risk-taking behavior under a moral hazard framework. Exploiting (a) the contractual-level data of automobile insurance, and (b) a unique institutional reform that gives more pricing freedom to insurers, we discover a...

Do shareholder protection laws affect the corporate cost of capital? To identify the causal impact of shareholder protection laws on firms’ implied cost of capital, we exploit the staggered adoption across 23 U.S. states of universal demand (UD) laws, which place significant obstacles to...

We evaluate how a positive, technology-driven shock to bank liquidity affects small business dynamics across different size distributions. We first show that banks receiving positive liquidity shocks increase lending to relatively larger SMEs, not to the smallest firms. This finding is...