Does democratization reduce the cost of credit? Using global syndicated loan data from 1984 to 2014, we find that democratization has a sizeable negative effect on loan spreads: a one-point increase in the zero-to-ten Polity IV index of democracy shaves at least 19 basis points off spreads, but...

We examine how executive equity risk-taking incentives affect firms' choice of debt structure. Using a longitudinal sample of U.S. firms, we document that when executive compensation is more sensitive to stock volatility (i.e., has higher vega), firms reduce their reliance on bank debt...

The paper investigates whether and how a state's local corruption environment affects firms' financing costs. We find that firms in high-corruption states are associated with significantly higher loan spreads and tighter loan covenants. We use an instrumental variable approach and a...

We study how firms' ownership structure affects the cost of debt using evidence from Chinese corporate bond market. Our result shows state, institutional, and foreign ownership all help to reduce firms' cost of debt. The effect of state ownership is more pronounced if the issuer is headquartered...

This study investigates the relationship between politically connected firms and their access to bank financing in a post-communist eras in Poland. Overall, it finds that "recent" political connections do influence access to bank financing and the value of such connections increased during the...

This study investigates whether CEO perquisite of borrowing firms plays any significant role, both in terms of price and non-price settings, in financial contracts and reveals that lending banks demand significantly higher return (spread), more collateral, and stricter covenants from firms with...