Debt and equity issuance are procyclical for most size-sorted firm categories of listed US firms and the procyclicality of equity issuance decreases monotonically with firm size. At the aggregate level, however, the results for equity issuance are not conclusive due to different behavior of the largest firms, especially those in the top one percent. During a deterioration in economic conditions, firms limit the impact of the reduction in external financing on investment by shedding financial assets. This is true for a worsening in aggregate as well as firm-specific conditions. (JEL E32, G32, L11, L25)

This paper considers propagation of aggregate shocks in a dynamic general-equilibrium model with labor-market matching and endogenous job destruction. Cyclical fluctuations in the job-destruction rate magnify the output effects of shocks, as well as making them much more persistent. Interactions between capital adjustment and the job-destruction rate play an important role in generating persistence. Propagation effects are shown to be quantitatively substantial when the model is calibrated using job-flow data. Incorporating costly capital adjustment leads to significantly greater propagation. (JEL E24, E32)