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 studies the impact of unemployment insurance (UI) on consumer credit markets. Exploiting heterogeneity in UI generosity across U.S. states and over time, we find that UI helps the unemployed avoid defaulting on their mortgage debt. We estimate that UI expansions during the Great...

This paper examines the role of women helping women in corporate America. Using a merged panel of directors and executives for large U.S. corporations between 1997 and 2009, the authors find a positive association between the female share of the board of directors in the previous year and the...

While many researchers and policymakers infer from correlations between eating out and body weight that restaurants are a leading cause of obesity, a basic identification problem challenges these conclusions. We exploit the placement of Interstate Highways in rural areas to obtain exogenous...

This paper examines the role of women helping women in corporate America. Using a merged panel of directors and executives for large US corporations between 1997 and 2009, we find a positive association between the female share of the board of directors in the previous year and the female share...

This paper examines whether debt financing can undermine a supermarket firm's incentive to provide product quality. In the supermarket industry, product availability is an important measure of a retailer's quality. Using US consumer price index microdata to track inventory shortfalls, I find...

This paper examines the two-way relationship between managerial compensation and corporate risk by exploiting an unanticipated change in firms' business risks. The natural experiment provides an opportunity to examine two classic questions related to incentives and risk—how boards adjust...

I analyze the strategic use of debt financing to improve a firm's bargaining position with an important supplier-organized labor. Because maintaining high levels of corporate liquidity can encourage workers to raise their wage demands, a firm with external finance constraints has an incentive to...

Many young employees work on a temporary basis, which entails significantly greater income risk than "permanent" work, even for jobs in the same occupation and at a similar wage. We find that this income uncertainty leads lenders to ration credit to temporary workers, precisely at the stage of...