Using a unique firm-level survey database covering 54 countries, we investigate the effect of financial, legal, and corruption problems on firms' growth rates. Whether these factors constrain growth depends on firm size. It is consistently the smallest firms that are most constrained. Financial...

We investigate how differences in legal and financial systems affect firms' use of external financing to fund growth. We show that in countries whose legal systems score high on an efficiency index, a greater proportion of firms use long-term external financing. An active, though not necessarily...

This paper investigates whether Chapter 11 bankruptcy provides a mechanism by which insolvent firms are efficiently reorganized and the assets of unproductive firms are effectively redeployed. We argue that incentives to reorganize depend on the level of demand and industry conditions. Using...

The author shows, in a model of competitive banks, that the characteristics of loan contracts are affected by product market imperfections in the borrower's industry. A bank loan commitment increases the value of a borrower firm operating in an imperfectly competitive industry and, thus,...

This paper shows that, even in the presence of a perfectly competit ive banking industry, it is optimal for firms with market power to en gage in vendor financing if credit customers have lower reservation prices than cash customers, or if adverse selection makes it infeasible to write credit...

Issue size choice and underpricing in mutual-to-stock conversions of thrifts are explained as a function of growth opportunities, perquisite consumption, and proprietary information. The authors provide evidence that thrifts with greater growth opportunities choose larger issue size and...

We develop a profit-maximizing neoclassical model of optimal firm size and growth across different industries based on differences in industry fundamentals and firm productivity. In the model, a conglomerate discount is consistent with profit maximization. The model predicts how conglomerate...

We examine the effect of industry life-cycle stages on within-industry acquisitions and capital expenditures by conglomerates and single-segment firms controlling for endogeneity of organizational form. We find greater differences in acquisitions than in capital expenditures, which are similar...

The authors investigate a class of agency costs of debt that arise because debt financing affects the firm's incentives to use inputs efficiently. A methodology for estimating this class of costs is presented and applied to a major industry--air transport. The authors' results are consistent...