We investigate how firms manage financial default risk (on debt) and operational default risk (on delivery obligations). Financially constrained firms reduce operational hedging through inventory and supply chain in favor of cash holdings. Our model predicts that firms' markup increases with...

We analyze the performance of Indian banks during 2007-09 relative to their vulnerability to a crisis measured using pre-crisis data, in order to study the impact of government guarantees on bank performance during a crisis. Using bank branch-level regulatory data, we exploit geographic...

We show theoretically and empirically that in the presence of a time-varying cost of capital (COC), firms have a hedging motive to reduce the overall COC over time by saving cash when COC is relatively low. The sensitivity of cash savings to COC is especially pronounced with respect to the cost...

We analyze the determinants and the long-run consequences of government interventions in the eurozone banking sector during the 2008/09 financial crisis. Using a novel and comprehensive dataset, we document that fiscally constrained governments "kicked the can down the road" by providing banks...

Data on firm-loan-level daily credit line drawdowns in the United States expose a corporate "dash for cash" induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first phase of the crisis, which was characterized by extreme precaution and heightened aggregate risk, all firms drew down bank credit lines and...

This paper introduces a new financial vulnerability index for emerging market economies by exploiting key differences in their business cycles relative to those of advanced economies. Information on the domestic price of risk, cost of dollar hedging and market-based measures of bank...

We show that cheap credit to impaired firms has a disinflationary effect. By helping distressed firms to stay afloat, "zombie credit" can create excess production capacity, and in turn, put downward pressure on markups and prices. We test this mechanism exploiting granular inflation and...

How is a developing country affected by its odious government's ability to borrow in international markets? We examine the dynamics of a country's growth, consumption, and sovereign debt, assuming that the government is myopic and wants to maximize short-term, socially unproductive, spending....

We analyze how regulatory constraints on household leverage--in the form of loan-to-income and loan-to-value limits--affect residential mortgage credit and house prices as well as other asset classes not directly targeted by the limits. Supervisory loan level data suggest that mortgage credit is...

We establish that macroprudential policies limiting capital flows can curb risks arising from corporate foreign currency borrowing in emerging markets. Using detailed firm-level data from India, we show that propensity to issue foreign currency debt for the same firm is higher when the...