We examine the joint optimization of financial leverage and irreversible capacity investment in a real options framework with risky debt and endogenous interest costs. Higher capacity, ceteris paribus, increases operating leverage and default probability, but lowers ex post adjustment costs and...

We find a positive cross-sectional relationship between expected stock returns and default risk, contrary to the negative relationship estimated by prior studies. Whereas prior studies use noisy ex post realized returns to estimate expected returns, we use ex ante estimates based on the implied...

We analyze how Credit Default Swaps (CDS) affect bank incentives and borrower outcomes in renegotiations after covenant violations. Using a regression-discontinuity design and within lender-borrower variation, we find that CDS firms maintain investment after control rights shift to the creditor,...