This paper quantifies the relative importance of labor-induced operating leverage at explaining the value premium. I extend a traditional variance decomposition methodology using labor shares to disentangle labor leverage from the value premium and from the value spread and from the variation in...

The value premium is the empirical observation that low market/book “value” stocks have higher returns than high market/book “growth” stocks. In this paper, we report evidence that there is a value premium for firms in financial distress despite the anomalous observation that firms in...

The empirical tests of traditional structural models of credit risk tend to indicate that such models have been unsuccessful in the modeling of credit spreads. To address these negative findings some authors introduce single-factor stochastic volatility specifications and/or jumps.In the yield...

De- and re-levering betas is important to obtain discount rates for assets that are not publicly traded. A de- and re-levering procedure is around for the case of risk-free debt. The procedure for risky debt is much less clear even under very simplifying assumptions. In this paper, I concretize...

What is the cross-sectional relationship between financial leverage and expected equity returns? How is the empirical relationship associated with firm's financial decisions? This paper investigates the potential explanations for the flatness relation between financial leverage and expected...

The tax shield as present value of debt-related tax savings plays an important role in firm valuation. Driving the risk of future debt levels, the firm's strategy to adjust the absolute debt level to future changes of the firm value, labeled as (re-)financing policy, affects the value of tax...

The tax shield as present value of debt-related tax savings plays an important role in firm valuation. Driving the risk of future debt levels, the firm’s strategy to adjust the absolute debt level to future changes of the firm value, labeled as (re-) financing policy, affects the value of tax...

Our study examines whether financial distress risk is systematic risk using twelve portfolios sorted by size, book-to-market, and leverage and a portfolio of distressed firms covering an 18-year period. It also tests the explanatory power of the risk factors that best capture default risk. The...