Asymmetric information models suggest that a borrower’s choice of debt maturity depends on its private information about its default probabilities, that is, borrowers with favorable information prefer short-term debt while those with unfavorable information prefer long-term debt. We test this implication by tracing the evolution of debt issuers’ default risk following debt issuances. We find that short-term debt issuance leads to a decline inborrowers’ asset volatility and an increase in their distance to default. The opposite is true for long-term debt issues. The results suggest that borrowers’ private information about their default risk is an important determinant of their debt maturity choices.

During an IPO offering, issuers may revise both the offer price and quantity (number of shares). These revisions are of comparable magnitude and are nearly uncorrelated. We show theoretically that these two revisions should be interpreted differently. Shocks to growth options induce price and quantity to move together, whereas shocks to assets-in-place induce movements in opposing directions. Using public shocks that proxy for these two shocks, we find evidence of the predicted comovements. Post-IPO investment behavior is predicted by these revisions in a manner consistent with our model. Unexpected investment is positively associated with both price and quantity revisions, but only when the revisions are aligned. Viewed jointly, price and quantity revisions disentangle the nature of information received during the offering.

Constructing a comprehensive data set of financially distressed firms that restructured their debts from 2000–2014, we find that firms with financial institutions’ loan-equity simultaneous holdings are more likely to restructure out of court than to file for bankruptcy. The effect is stronger when loans are oversecured and when the expected bankruptcy costs are larger. We use mergers of financial institutions and instrumental variable estimations to address potential endogeneity concerns. Firms with simultaneous holdings experience higher stock returns. The evidence suggests that mitigating shareholder-creditor conflict results in cost-effective resolutions of financial distress.

Utilizing a hand-collected comprehensive dataset covering U.S. public traded firms from 2006 to 2014, we present descriptive evidence regarding insider pledging behavior in the U.S. and study its determinants. We find an insider’s propensity to pledge company stock is positively associated with her risk exposure and pledgeability of company stock, and negatively with the company’s corporate governance quality. These findings suggest that risk-averse corporate insiders pledge to hedge. Further, we find ISS’s denouncement of pledging in 2012 reduces insider pledging.

This paper examines the relation between corporate debt maturity dispersion and the pricing and terms of bank loans. Analyzing a sample of U.S. bank loans from 2002 to 2016, we find that firms with a dispersed debt maturity structure pay a lower interest rate. The rate-reduction effect is significant only for firms without a credit rating. For these firms, spreading debt maturity dates also results in lower commitment fees, fewer covenant restrictions, and less collateral in their loan contracts. The impact of debt maturity dispersion on the pricing and structure of bank loans is stronger when borrowers have higher rollover risk or when the need for monitoring is greater. Our results suggest that dispersion in debt maturity structure mitigates the agency problem associated with shareholder–creditor conflicts by reducing rollover risk and alleviating the need for monitoring, which results in borrowers receiving more favorable terms in loan contracts.

We examine chief executive officer (CEO) career and compensation changes for large firms filing for Chapter 11. One-third of the incumbent CEOs maintain executive employment, and these CEOs experience a median compensation change of zero. However, incumbent CEOs leaving the executive labor market suffer a compensation loss with a median present value until age 65 of 7 million (five times pre-departure compensation). The likelihood of leaving decreases with profitability and CEO share ownership. Furthermore, creditor control rights during bankruptcy (through debtor-in-possession financing and large trade credits) are associated with CEO career change. Despite large equity losses (median 11 million for incumbents who stay until filing), the median incumbent does not reduce his stock ownership as the firm approaches bankruptcy.

This study examines the empirical relation between football players’ wage income and financial development at the individual level. Using a large panel dataset of 237,631 football players from 153 countries from 2010 to 2020 and the International Monetary Fund's Financial Development Indices, we show that financial development significantly raises players’ wages. Players’ wages increase by 25.77% as the Financial Development Index rises by one standard deviation. Our main findings are robust to using subindices of financial development and instrumental variable regressions. We further point out that football players of low capability, with low wages, and who play for low-reputation clubs benefit more from financial development.

How efficient is corporate bankruptcy in the United States? Two frictions, asymmetric information and conflicts of interest among creditors, can cause several inefficiencies: excess liquidation, excess continuation, and excess delay. We find large bankruptcy inefficiencies, mainly due to excess delay. Eliminating information asymmetries would increase average total payouts by 4%, and eliminating conflicts of interest would increase them by 18% more. Without these frictions, 14% more cases would be resolved pre-court, and court cases would be 73% shorter. With less delay, bankruptcy’s indirect costs would be much lower. In contrast, inefficiencies from excess liquidation and excess continuation are quite small.

Exploiting the random assignment of judges to corporate bankruptcy filings, we estimate financial costs of judicial inexperience. Despite new judges’ prior legal experience, formal education, and rigorous hiring process, their public Chapter 11 cases spend 19% more time in bankruptcy, realize 31% higher legal and professional fees, and 21% lower creditor recovery rates. Examining possible mechanisms, we find that new judges take longer to rule on motions and cases assigned to these judges file more plans of reorganization. Conservative estimates suggest that minor policy adjustments could increase creditor recoveries by approximately $16.8 billion for the public firms in our sample.