Investment-based asset pricing research highlights the role of irreversibility as a determinant of firms' risk and expected return. In a neoclassical model of a firm with costly scale adjustment options, we show that the effect of scale flexibility (i.e., contraction and expansion options) is to...

We study whether firms spread out debt maturity dates, which we call "granularity of corporate debt.'' In our model, firms that are unable to roll over expiring debt need to liquidate assets. If multiple small asset sales are less inefficient than a single large one, it can be optimal to...

This paper studies incentives in a dynamic contracting framework of a levered firm. In particular, the manager selects long-term and short-term efforts, while shareholders choose initially optimal leverage and ex-post optimal default policies. Notably, a resource constraint that binds the...

We study a novel aspect of a firm's capital structure, namely the profile of its debt maturity dates. In a simple theoretical framework we show that the dispersion of debt maturities constitutes an important dimension of capital structure choice, driven by firm characteristics and debt rollover...

We study the interaction between financing and investment decisions in a dynamic model where the firm has multiple debt issues and equityholders choose the timing of investment. Jointly optimal capital and priority structures can virtually eliminate investment distortions, because debt priority...

Admati, Demarzo, Hellwig, and Pfleiderer (ADHP, 2018) note that static models of optimal leverage have assumed firms have no prior debt. In this case, the leverage that maximizes firm value also maximizes value to the initial equity owners. However, using a simple two-period model with zero...