We use real estate firms to examine how asset liquidation values influence a firm's financing choices, since the productivity and quality of each asset is observable and potential measures of an asset's liquidation value are easier to ascertain ex-ante. We show that compared to firms that issue...

We find evidence that conflicts of interest are pervasive in the asset management business owned by investment banks. Using data from 1990 to 2008, we compare the alphas of mutual funds, hedge funds and institutional funds operated by investment banks and non-bank conglomerates. We find that...