Multinational companies can exploit the tax advantage of debt more aggressively than national companies. Besides utilizing the standard debt tax shield, multinationals can shift debt from affiliates in low-tax countries to affiliates in high-tax countries. We study the capital structure of...

Some multinationals use the parent company as a lender to the group, whereas others set up an internal bank in a low tax jurisdiction. This paper discusses the link between capital structure choices and tax planning motives in multinational groups. We model the trade-off between the use of...

Credit default swaps (CDSs) are an effective tool to trade credit risk, and they can improve the corporate information environment. We find that firms use more public debt and less bank debt when CDSs reference their debt start trading. The results are robust to the endogeneity of CDS trading....

This paper investigates the relationship between the borrowing firm's cross-ownership and its choice between bank loans and public bonds when raising new debt capital. We find that cross-ownership significantly reduces the firm's use of bank loans when making debt issuance decisions. Evidence...

We examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on firm borrowing behavior across 31 countries. We exploit the quasi-experimental properties of this pandemic to investigate how national culture, government preparedness, and response to the pandemic affect corporate borrowing and the structure of...

This paper studies capital structure adjustment mechanisms of firms that experience substantial changes in leverage. Adjustments appear to be asymmetric among firms with large increases and those with large decreases in debt ratios. The different adjustments are not due to differences in...

We examine whether the effect of increased creditor rights on corporate borrowing depends on firm's access to internal capital. By exploiting a creditor protection reform in India, empirical outcomes strongly indicate that strengthening of creditor rights leads to increased corporate borrowing...

We augment the LLSV creditor rights index with a new “restructuring index” that measures the incentives provided to creditors to grant concessions outside formal bankruptcy. We study the joint impact of the two indexes on a firm's leverage policy. We show that the two indexes have at most a...

We study the relationship between corporate debt, corporate risk and firm-level investment, using a sample of 25,000 listed companies across 47 countries over the last two decades. We find higher leverage reduces investment but show the effect varies with risk, as measured by firm time-varying...

Private equity funds pay particular attention to capital structure when executing leveraged buyouts, creating an interesting setting for examining capital structure theories. Using a large, detailed, international sample of buyouts from 1980-2008, we find that buyout leverage is unrelated to the...