We compare the determinants of the corporate debt ownership structure in a bank-oriented economy (Germany) and market-oriented economy (UK). The results, that are controlled for endogeneity, simultaneity and measurement errors, show that the firms in both countries adjust their debt ownership...

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 examine how production flexibility affects financial leverage. A worldwide sample of energy utilities allows us to apply direct measures for production flexibility based on their power plants. We find that production flexibility increases financial leverage. For identification, we exploit...

This paper presents evidence that firms choose conservative financial policies partly to mitigate workers' exposure to unemployment risk. We exploit changes in state unemployment insurance laws as a source of variation in the costs borne by workers during layoff spells. We find that higher...

This paper investigates the relationship between leverage and returns in private equity buyout transactions. In contrast to the predictions of traditional capital structure theory, we find that transactions financed with large amounts of debt are associated higher transaction prices and lower...

We propose a novel approach for studying optimal capital structure under the prevalent corporate income tax regime where full tax deductibility of interest is permitted. Then, following the OECD proposed BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) framework, we impose an EBITDA-based limit on the...