We calibrate a dynamic model of credit risk and analyze the relation between growth options and credit spreads. Our model features real and financing frictions, a technology with decreasing returns to scale, and endogenous investment options driven by both systematic and idiosyncratic shocks. We...

If firms can issue debt only at discrete dates, debt maturity is an effective device against the commitment problem on debt and investment policies. With shorter maturities, debt dynamics are less persistent and more valuable because upward leverage adjustments are faster and long-run leverage...

We investigate the joint effect of production capacity choices and capital structure decisions on corporate debt default - related yield spreads. We find that the main driver of credit spreads is the incentive of self-interested shareholders to cash out assets in an economic decline and to...

We solve the credit spread puzzle with a structural model of firm's policies that endogenously replicates the empirical cross-section of credit spreads. Structural estimation of the model's parameters reveals that the model cannot be rejected by the data, and that endogenous investment decisions...

We show that a dynamic model of investment and capital structure choices, where the firm faces real and financial frictions, can generate option prices and implied volatilities that are in line with those of the average optionable stock. As the balance between the fundamental economic forces...

We show that a structural model of firm decisions can produce very flexible implied volatility surfaces: upward and downward sloping, u-shaped. A calibrated version of the model is able to match many unconditional financial characteristics of the average option-able stock, and can help explain...