The corporate governance literature has shown that self-interested controlling owners tend to divert corporate resources for private benefits at the expense of other shareholders. Such behavior leads the controlling owners to prefer long maturity debt to short maturity debt, to avoid frequent...

Our study examines whether financial distress risk is systematic risk using twelve portfolios sorted by size, book-to-market, and leverage and a portfolio of distressed firms covering an 18-year period. It also tests the explanatory power of the risk factors that best capture default risk. The...

This paper investigates the impact of labor protection on corporate debt maturity structure. We hypothesize that stronger labor protection is conducive to a greater use of short-term debt maturity by firms. Using various country-level indicators as measures of labor protection, and a sample of...