This article analyzes the importance of supply-side fluctuations for corporate hedging. To establish a causal link, we exploit a regulatory change that allows derivatives counterparties to circumvent the Bankruptcy Code’s automatic stay: the Safe Harbor Reform of 2005. Following the reform-induced expansion in the availability of derivatives, fuel hedging by airlines nearing financial distress (those that benefited most from the reform) significantly increased in comparison with financially sound airlines. We find that the hedging propensity similarly increased in a general sample of nonfinancial firms. In line with theory, we also find that operating performance increased for the affected firms.

This paper shows that compensation incentives partly drive fund managers’ market volatility timing strategies. Larger incentive management fees lead to less counter-cyclical or more pro-cyclical volatility timing. But fund styles or aggregate fund flows could also account for this relation; therefore, we control for them and find that the relation between fees and volatility timing still holds. Results show that less aggressive fund styles are associated with pro-cyclical volatility timing, and that volatility timing and flow timing are negatively related. We also find that pro-cyclical timing mostly improves funds’ average excess returns, Sharpe ratios, and alphas.

Evidence suggests that asset pledgeability, debt complexity, and control rights of dispersed debt influence financial distress resolution. We model how courts’ imperfect verifiability of assets and valuable control of misaligned creditors shape firms’ debt structure and create coordination problems that determine distress outcomes and financing. A key result is that an increase in verifiability allows financially constrained firms to fund projects by pledging more assets to misaligned creditors, making contract renegotiation in distress times more difficult and increasing the probability of bankruptcy. Since equity receives less in the event of distress, constrained firms choose riskier projects with higher returns. Consistent with our model, bankruptcy filings increase after the U.S. Supreme Court decision imposing a “market test” to assess the value of stockholders’ interest in debtor proposals. The effect is stronger for firms with low asset verifiability. These firms also experienced an increase in recovery rates, debt capacity, and risk-taking. Our findings suggest that reforms improving the verifiability of assets substantially impact credit access. However, our results also point out that improving asset verifiability may be insufficient for constrained firms with aligned creditors. Therefore, complementary reforms that facilitate firms’ access to creditors from different market segments may be necessary.

We study the capital structure changes of drug firms after an investment-opportunity shock brought about by the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we show that the shock led drug firms to make their capital structures less constraining by decreasing leverage, shortening debt maturity, increasing unsecured debt, and reducing convertible debt. New debt covenants became less restrictive and firms raised equity to preserve borrowing capacity. Our results support the view that firms actively manage their capital structures to bolster financial flexibility and increase debt capacity in response to new investment opportunities.

We study how risk management through hedging affects firms and competition among firms in the life insurance industry, an industry with over 7 trillion in assets and over 1,000 private and public firms. We examine firms after a staggered state-level reform that reduces the costs of hedging by granting derivatives superpriority in case of insolvency. We show that firms that are likely to face costly external finance increase hedging and reduce risk and the probability of receivership. Firms that are likely to face costly external finance also lower prices, increase policy sales, and increase their market share post-reform.

This article uses a unique dataset to study how firms managed liquidity during the 2008–2009 financial crisis. Our analysis provides new insights on interactions between internal liquidity, external funds, and real corporate decisions, such as investment and employment. We first describe how companies used credit lines during the crisis (access, size of facilities, and drawdown activity), the characteristics of these facilities (fees, markups, maturity, and collateral), and whether managers had difficulties in renewing or initiating lines. We also describe the dynamics of credit line violations and the outcome of subsequent renegotiations. We show how companies substitute between credit lines and internal liquidity (cash and profits) when facing a severe credit shortage. Looking at real-side decisions, we find that credit lines are associated with greater spending when companies are not cash-strapped. Firms with limited access to credit lines, in contrast, appear to choose between saving and investing during the crisis. Our evidence indicates that credit lines eased the impact of the financial crisis on corporate spending.