[In corporate finance and asset pricing empirical work, researchers are often confronted with panel data. In these data sets, the residuals may be correlated across firms or across time, and OLS standard errors can be biased. Historically, researchers in the two literatures have used different solutions to this problem. This paper examines the different methods used in the literature and explains when the different methods yield the same (and correct) standard errors and when they diverge. The intent is to provide intuition as to why the different approaches sometimes give different answers and give researchers guidance for their use.]

Prior work on leverage implicitly assumes capital availability depends solely on firm characteristics. However, market frictions that make capital structure relevant may also be associated with a firm's source of capital. Examining this intuition, we find firms that have access to the public bond markets, as measured by having a debt rating, have significantly more leverage. Although firms with a rating are fundamentally different, these differences do not explain our findings. Even after controlling for firm characteristics that determine observed capital structure, and instrumenting for the possible endogeneity of having a rating, firms with access have 35% more debt.

Firms may be financed by their suppliers rather than by financial institutions. There are many theories of trade credit, but few comprehensive empirical tests. This article attempts to fill the gap. We focus on small firms whose access to capital markets may be limited and find evidence suggesting that firms use more trade credit when credit from financial institutions is unavailable. Suppliers lend to constrained firms because they have a comparative advantage in getting information about buyers, they can liquidate assets more efficiently, and they have an implicit equity stake in the firms. Finally, firms with better access to credit offer more trade credit.

In both corporate finance and asset pricing empirical work, researchers are often confronted with panel data. In these data sets, the residuals may be correlated across firms and across time, and OLS standard errors can be biased. Historically, the two literatures have used different solutions to this problem. Corporate finance has relied on Rogers standard errors, while asset pricing has used the Fama-MacBeth procedure to estimate standard errors. This paper will examine the different methods used in the literature and explain when the different methods yield the same (and correct) standard errors and when they diverge. The intent is to provide intuition as to why the different approaches sometimes give different answers and thus give researchers guidance for their use.

This paper empirically examines how ties between a firm and its creditors affect the availability and cost of funds to the firm. The authors analyze data collected in a survey of small firms by the Small Business Administration. The primary benefit of building close ties with an institutional creditor is that the availability of financing increases. The authors find smaller effects on the price of credit. Attempts to widen the circle of relationships by borrowing from multiple leaders increases the price and reduces the availability of credit. In sum, relationships are valuable and appear to operate more through quantities rather than prices.

When trades are executed inside the posted bid-ask spread, the posted spread is no longer an accurate measure of transactions costs faced by investors. Using two samples of market orders, one based on orders submitted by retail brokers and one based on orders submitted electronically to the NYSE, we document a significant difference between the posted spread and the effective spread paid by investors. For most orders, the effective spread averages half the posted spread. In addition, when the posted spread widens, only 10 to 22% of the increase appears in the effective spread. These results have significant implications for any empirical work that uses the posted spread as a measure of the cost of trading. Our findings also document a significant difference in the expected execution price across exchanges. This finding is robust to controls for the type of order, and implies that U.S. equity markets are not completely integrated.

Prior work on leverage implicitly assumes capital availability depends solely on firm characteristics. However, market frictions that make capital structure relevant may also be associated with a firm's source of capital. Examining this intuition, we find firms that have access to the public bond markets, as measured by having a debt rating, have significantly more leverage. Although firms with a rating are fundamentally different, these differences do not explain our findings. Even after controlling for firm characteristics that determine observed capital structure, and instrumenting for the possible endogeneity of having a rating, firms with access have 35% more debt.

Information, which can arrive in multiple forms, is a fundamental component of all financial transactions and markets. We define hard and soft information and describe the relative advantages of each. Hard information is quantitative, is easy to store, and can be transmitted in impersonal ways. Its information content is independent of its collection. As technology changes, the way we collect, process, and communicate information, it changes the structure of markets, the design of financial intermediaries, and the incentives to use or misuse information. We survey the literature to understand how information type influences the continued evolution of financial markets and institutions. Received October 25, 2016; editorial decision September 6, 2018 by Editor Efraim Benmelech.

What has driven the dramatic rise in U.S. corporate cash? Using non-public data, we show that the run-up is not uniform across firms but is concentrated in the foreign subsidiaries of multinational firms. Standard precautionary motives explain only domestic cash holdings, not these burgeoning foreign cash balances. Falling foreign tax rates, coupled with relaxed restrictions on income shifting, are the root of the changing foreign cash patterns. Firms with intellectual property have the greatest ability to shift income to low tax jurisdictions, and their foreign subsidiaries are where we observe the largest accumulations of cash. Received September 6, 2017; editorial decision August 22, 2018 by Editor David Denis.