We study how financial distress of a significant customer impacts capital structure of suppliers. Using a sample of U.S. firms that filed for Chapter 11 between 1980 and 2013, we find that the suppliers of these firms increase their leverage ratio over the two years prior to the filing date. This change is economically significant and consistent with the bargaining power theory, which states that an increase in suppliers' debt decreases the surplus available for negotiations. Therefore, suppliers increase their financing leverage to fortify their bargaining power with significant, distressed customers. We also find evidence that suppliers reduce their leverage after the customer reorganizes its liabilities and capital structure in the Chapter 11 process, indicating a return to a previous status quo.

We show how the structure of partner incentives and decision processes within a venture capital firm contribute to fund performance and partnership success. Optimal capital allocation during staged financing requires that partner incentives encourage cooperation by linking a partner's compensation to the return on the entire fund rather than return on the investment sponsored by an individual partner. Incentives for individual performance are optimally provisioned by a higher profit share in a subsequent fund. Our paper provides an economic underpinning to empirical observations about partner pay and the internal organization of venture capital firms.

Using an earnings-based structural model, calibrated with US data for the period 2001–2017, we examine how the structure of an interest expense cap for the deduction of interest expense changes the tax benefits of debt. We find that an EBIT (EBITDA) based cap reduces the marginal tax benefits of debt by 6 percentage points (4.6 p.p.) of unlevered firm value for a typical firm. This impact differs across industries due to variations in industry-specific labor and physical capital deployed, and the associated depreciation. An EBITDA-based structure for a cap reduces the differential tax impact of a cap across industries. Our results are widely applicable in determining the cost of debt in the presence of these cap structures, enshrined in the US and OECD countries.