Information asymmetry, monitoring, and the placement structure of corporate debt1We thank David Brown, Mark Carey, Stephane Chretien, Michael Cliff, Hemang Desai, Bob Dittmar, Charles Hadlock, Paisan Limratanamongkol, Karl Lins, Vojislav Maksimovic, Beverly Marshall, David Mauer, Erlend Nier, Russ Robins, Vic Sarna, Richard Shockley, Anjan Thakor, Joaquin Trigueros, Robert Weigand, Marc Zenner, and seminar participants at Texas A&M, Tulane, the 1996 FMA meetings, the 1997 WFA meetings, and the 1998 EFMA meetings for helpful comments. We are especially grateful to David Blackwell (the referee), and Clifford Smith (the editor) for suggestions that have improved the paper substantially.1 - Krishnaswami, Sudha; Spindt, Paul A; Subramaniam, Venkat (Journal of Financial Economics, 1999)