We analyze the after-swap mix of fixed and floating rate debt in a sample of non-financial firms, using hand-collected data from a window of time when derivative positions were included in accounting disclosures. To motivate the analyses, we present a simple theoretical model that highlights the special features of interest rate risk. Consistent with the theory, we find that firms that issue more fixed rate debt have higher liquidity ratios and lower operating income ratios. We also document that individual firms actively vary the proportion of their fixed rate debt to a strikingly high extent. There is a debate as to whether such variation should be interpreted as hedging or speculation. We show that the firms more actively varying their debt mix respond to different hedging motives than those with low activity. We then empirically motivate an alternative indicator of speculative activity: co-variation between ex-post profitability of financial decisions and operating results.

The Probability of Informed Trading (PIN) is a widely used indicator of information asymmetry risk in the trading of securities. Its estimation using maximum likelihood algorithms has been shown to be problematic, resulting in biased or unavailable estimates, especially in the case of liquid and frequently traded assets. We provide an alternative approach to estimating PIN by means of a Bayesian method that addresses some of the shortcomings in the existing estimation strategies. The method leads to a natural quantification of the uncertainty of PIN estimates, which may prove helpful in their use and interpretation. We also provide an easy to use toolbox for estimating PIN.

Exposure to political corruption and political uncertainty separately demands opposing risk management responses: to reduce cash to minimize expropriation and to increase cash to hedge policy risk. We study how local political corruption and political uncertainty interact in their impact on corporate cash holdings within the United States. We find robust evidence that firms located in states with higher corruption scores react to increases in local political uncertainty by increasing cash holdings more than those in less corrupt settings. This behavior suggests that firms in more corrupt settings find it expedient to raise cash to facilitate influence of officials in the face of local political risk. We find further support for this conclusion by showing that politically engaged firms respond to our measure of political risk by increasing cash and increasing spending on campaign contributions. Our findings point to a potential channel through which different jurisdictions experience the entrenchment and persistence of corruption.