This paper empirically shows that the cost of bank debt is systematically higher for firms that operate in competitive product markets. Using various proxies for product market competition, and reductions of import tariff rates to capture exogenous changes to a firm's competitive environment, I...

This paper empirically shows that the cost of bank debt is systematically higher for firms that operate in competitive product markets. Using various proxies for product market competition, and reductions of import tariffs to capture exogenous changes to a firm's competitive environment, I find...

This paper analyzes the effects of product market competition on zombie firms in the US using a large sample of publicly traded firms. First, we show that the asset-weighted share of zombie firms at the industry level decreases significantly with more competition. This decrease is mostly...