[We investigate corporate financial policies in the presence of both temporary and permanent shocks to firms' cash flows. In our framework, cash flows can be negative and are imperfectly correlated with firm value, and earnings volatility differs from asset volatility. These results are consistent with empirical stylized facts. They are also contrary to the implications of existing dynamic capital structure models that allow only for permanent shocks to cash flows. Temporary shocks increase the importance of financial flexibility and may provide an intuitively simple and realistic explanation of empirically observed financial conservatism and low leverage phenomena. The theoretical framework developed in this article general enough to be used in various corporate finance applications.]

This article develops a theory of multiunit auctions where short squeezes can occur in the secondary market. Both uniform and discriminatory auctions are studied and bidders can submit multiple bids. We show that bidders with short and long preauction positions have different valuations in an otherwise common value setting. Discriminatory auctions lead to more short squeezing and higher revenue than uniform auctions, ceteris paribus. Asymptotically, as the auction size approaches infinity, the two formats lead to equivalent outcomes. Shorts employ more aggressive equilibrium bidding strategies. Most longs strategically choose to be passive. Free riding on a squeeze by small, long players has no impact on these results, but affects revenue in discriminatory auctions.

[Intuition suggests that firms with higher cash holdings should be "safer" and have lower credit spreads. Yet empirically, the correlation between cash and spreads is robustly positive. This puzzling finding can be explained by the precautionary motive for saving cash, which in our model causes riskier firms to accumulate higher cash reserves. In contrast, spreads are negatively related to the part of cash holdings that is not determined by credit risk factors. Similarly, although firms with higher cash reserves are less likely to default in the short term, endogenously determined liquidity may be related positively to the longerterm probability of default. Our empirical analysis confirms these predictions, suggesting that precautionary savings are central to understanding the effects of cash on credit risk.]

[This article proposes a novel method of extracting the cost of default from the change in the market value of a firm's assets upon default. Using a large sample of firms with observed prices of debt and equity that defaulted over fourteen years, we estimate the cost of default for an average defaulting firm to be 21.7% of the market value of assets. The costs vary from 14.7% for bond renegotiations to 30.5% for bankruptcies, and are substantially higher for investment-grade firms (28.8%) than for highly levered bond issuers (20.2%), which extant estimates are based on exclusively.]

In the presence of frictions, firms adjust their capital structure infrequently. As a consequence, in a dynamic economy the leverage of most firms is likely to differ from the “optimum” leverage at the time of readjustment. This paper explores the empirical implications of this observation. I use a calibrated dynamic trade‐off model to simulate firms' capital structure paths. The results of standard cross‐sectional tests on these data are consistent with those reported in the empirical literature. In particular, the standard interpretation of some test results leads to the rejection of the underlying model. Taken together, the results suggest a rethinking of the way capital structure tests are conducted.

[We embed a structural model of credit risk inside a dynamic continuous-time consumptionbased asset pricing model, which allows us to price equity and corporate debt in a unified framework. Our key economic assumptions are that the first and second moments of earnings and consumption growth depend on the state of the economy, which switches randomly, creating intertemporal risk, which agents prefer to resolve sooner rather than later, because they have Epstein-Zin-Weil preferences. Agents optimally choose dynamic capital structure and default times. For a dynamic cross-section of firms, our model endogenously generates a realistic average term structure and time series of actual default probabilities and credit spreads, together with a reasonable levered equity risk premium, which varies with macroeconomic conditions.]

[We study the impact of time-varying macroeconomic conditions on optimal dynamic capital structure for a cross-section of firms. Our structural-equilibrium framework embeds a contingent-claim corporate financing model within a consumption-based asset-pricing model. We investigate the effect of macroeconomic conditions on asset valuation and optimal corporate policies, and of preferences on capital structure. While capital structure is pro-cyclical at dates when firms re-lever, it is counter-cyclical in aggregate dynamics, consistent with empirical evidence. We also find that financially constrained firms choose more pro-cyclical policies and that leverage accounts for most of the macroeconomic risk relevant for predicting defaults, but is a poor measure of how preferences impact capital structure.]

We investigate corporate financial policies in the presence of both temporary and permanent shocks to firms’ cash flows. In our framework, cash flows can be negative and are imperfectly correlated with firm value, and earnings volatility differs from asset volatility. These results are consistent with empirical stylized facts. They are also contrary to the implications of existing dynamic capital structure models that allow only for permanent shocks to cash flows. Temporary shocks increase the importance of financial flexibility and may provide an intuitively simple and realistic explanation of empirically observed financial conservatism and low leverage phenomena. The theoretical framework developed in this article general enough to be used in various corporate finance applications.

Do strategic actions of borrowers and lenders affect corporate debt values? We find higher bond spreads for firms that can renegotiate debt contracts relatively easily. Consistent with theories of strategic debt service, the threat of strategic default depresses bond values ex ante, even though there may be efficiency gains from renegotiation ex post. However, the economic significance of the net effect is small, suggesting that bondholders have considerable bargaining power. The effect of strategic actions is higher when creditors are particularly vulnerable to strategic threats, including risky firms with high managerial shareholding, simple debt structures, and high liquidation costs.

We provide a real-options model of an industry in which agents time abandonment of their projects in an effort to protect their reputations. Agents delay abandonment attempting to signal quality. When a public common shock forces abandonment of a small fraction of projects irrespective of agents' quality, many agents abandon their projects strategically even if they are unaffected by the shock. Such “blending in with the crowd” effect creates an additional incentive to delay abandonment ahead of the shock, leading to accumulation of “living dead” projects, which further amplifies the shock. The potential for moderate public common shocks often improves agents' values.