We examine how industry competition affects firms' choice of short-term debt. We find that the percentage of short-term debt is positively related to industry concentration at low levels of concentration, and inversely related to industry concentration at higher levels of concentration. This...

Using a panel of all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia from 1990 to 1999, we report a nonlinear relation between state bankruptcy exemptions and new business formation. The rate of new business formation first increases as exemptions increase, but it then decreases. This result...

This paper analyzes the determinants of banks' loan loss allowance for samples of U.S. banks and three non-U.S. samples: a group of 21 countries, Canada, and Japan. The model includes fundamental (or nondiscretionary) determinants of the allowance, such as nonperforming loans, and discretionary...

In the 1980s, a large number of thrifts converted from the mutual to the stock form of ownership. The literature has noted that investors in those conversions earned abnormally high short-term returns. However, over the long run the converters earned very poor returns. The major reason for the...