Firms that misreport financial information pay greater spreads on new bank loans for at least six years following restatement of the misreported information, whether benchmarked against their pre-restatement loans or similar loans of matched non-misreporting firms. Misreporting firms are more...

Using proprietary data from a major fund data provider, we analyze the screening activity of investment consultants (ICs) who advise institutional investors with trillions of dollars in assets. We find that ICs frequently shortlist funds using threshold screens clustered at round, base 5 or base...

We analyze how Credit Default Swaps (CDS) affect bank incentives and borrower outcomes in renegotiations after covenant violations. Using a regression-discontinuity design and within lender-borrower variation, we find that CDS firms maintain investment after control rights shift to the creditor,...

We analyze whether bond investors price tail risk exposures of financial institutions using a comprehensive sample of bond issuances by U.S. financial institutions. Although primary bond yield spreads increase with an institutions' own tail risk (expected shortfall), systematic tail risk...

We show that finance influences innovation by young private firms, an important source of long-term economic growth. We develop a simple theoretical model that predicts that a decrease (increase) in banks' bargaining power vis-a-vis entrepreneurs increases (decreases) both the volume and...

Among loan contracts originated during 1996 – 2015 with covenants, 37% have financial covenant thresholds that automatically tighten according to a predetermined schedule. Firms that accept dynamic covenant thresholds improve their creditworthiness, but they are more likely to violate...

Do increases in federal minimum wage impact the financial health of small businesses? Using intertemporal variation in whether a state's minimum wage is bound by the federal rate and credit-score data for approximately 15.2 million establishments for the period 1989–2013, we find that...

We analyze the impact of unanticipated monetary policy changes on equity returns and document that financially constrained firms earn a significantly lower return following rate increases as compared to unconstrained firms. Trading volume is significantly lower for constrained firms on FOMC...

We document that the stock market's reaction to unscheduled firm-specific news such as credit rating downgrades and 8-K filings is significantly weaker during December as compared to other months. In contrast, the market's reaction to scheduled earnings announcements is not significantly...

We investigate the effects of the filing of securities class actions on firms' cost of equity capital and shareholder wealth. We posit that class action litigation increases perceived uncertainties about the firm and leads to an increase in its cost of equity capital. Using three models for...