We model credibility challenges financial regulators often face when disclosing bank stress test results. Since disclosures influence banks’ risk-taking and depositors’ withdrawal decisions, regulators may have incentives to misreport. We show that regulators can reveal results credibly through imprecise disclosures to both banks and depositors. The regulator reveals only the range or the interval in which the result lies. Crucially, our findings indicate that stress test results can be disclosed credibly without assuming that the regulator is committed to truthful disclosure.

We examine information aggregation regarding industry capital productivity from privately informed managers in a dynamic model with optimal incentive contracts. Information cascades always occur if managers enjoy limited liability: when beliefs regarding productivity become endogenously extreme (optimistic or pessimistic), learning stops. There is no learning if initial beliefs are extreme, or if agency conflicts are severe. In contrast to the literature, cascades occur even when signals have unbounded precision or when there are rich action spaces. Relaxing limited liability constraints is not sufficient to avoid cascades; we provide sufficient conditions for efficient information aggregation through incentive contracts.

Using a dynamic model of strategic bargaining between equity and debt holders following default, we analyze the impact of shareholder bargaining power and debt overhang on optimal investment and strategic default. Our empirical tests utilize a new measure of the debt overhang wedge based on default probabilities generated from a hazard model for bankruptcy. Consistent with the theoretical predictions, bondholder (shareholder) ownership concentration ceteris paribus enhances (weakens) the overhang wedge and dampens (increases) capital investment. We identify novel ownership-structure-related factors in firm-level capital investment and document how post-default shareholder bargaining power alleviates the underinvestment problem caused by debt overhang. Received March 26, 2018; editorial decision June 20, 2018 by Editor: Paolo Fulghieri.

Does AI make firms vulnerable or resilient to cyberrisk? We develop a firm-year measure of AI intensity for U.S. listed firms using patents and 10-K business descriptions. A 1-standard-deviation increase in cyberrisk reduces patenting by 25%–30% for non-AI firms, with larger declines in data-intensive technologies. Frontier AI firms are much less affected, and their valuations rise when cyberrisk is high. This resilience does not extend to firms that adopt external AI tools without internal AI innovation. The evidence fits two channels: cyberrisk raises the cost of data-intensive innovation, and internal AI development builds organizational capacity to sustain innovation under cyberrisk.

Industry competition shocks are major drivers of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). We document strong positive effects of competition shocks on M&A-related covenant redesign. Acquiring firms in high-competition environments are significantly more likely to undertake tender offer bond repurchases and reduce restrictions on mergers, investments, payouts, and financing, but increase change-in-control covenants. This effect is stronger for larger, more profitable firms. Moreover, announcement returns from M&A transactions of redesigning firms in more competitive settings are significantly higher, while acquisition deal premiums are lower. Our study shows the significant effect of industry competition shocks on debt recontracting in M&A.