We develop a dynamic trade-off model with endogenous choice of leverage, distributions, and real investment in the presence of a graduated corporate income tax, individual taxes on interest and corporate distributions, financial distress costs, and equity flotation costs. We explain several...

What determines securitization levels, and should they be regulated? To address these questions we develop a model where originators can exert unobservable effort to increase expected asset quality, subsequently having private information regarding quality when selling ABS to rational investors....

We argue exogenous random treatment is insufficient for valid inference regarding the sign and magnitude of causal effects in dynamic environments. In such settings, treatment responses must be understood as contingent upon the typically unmodeled policy generating process. With binary...

Privately informed owners securitizing assets signal positive information by retaining sufficient interest. Signaling provides social benefits, allowing uninformed investors to insure without fearing adverse selection. Instead of signaling, owners of high value assets may prefer a pooling...

We determine optimal security design and retention of asset-backed securities by a privately informed issuer with positive NPV uses for immediate cash. In canonical models, investors revert to prior beliefs if issuers pool at zero-retentions (originate-to-distribute), and separating equilibria...

What determines equilibrium securitization levels, and should they be regulated? To address these questions we develop a model where originators can exert unobservable effort to increase asset quality, subsequently having private information regarding quality when selling ABS to rational...

type="main" <title type="main">ABSTRACT</title> <p>What determines securitization levels, and should they be regulated? To address these questions we develop a model where originators can exert unobservable effort to increase expected asset quality, subsequently having private information regarding quality when selling ABS...</p>

We analyze determinants of secondary debt market liquidity, identifying conditions under which a large investor can profitably buy stakes from small bondholders and offer unilateral debt relief to a distressed firm. We show that endogenous trading by small bondholders may result in multiple...