This paper investigates whether equity indices of 24 emerging and 28 developed markets compensate their investors equally after taking risk into account, and examines the predictive power of reward-to-risk ratios for expected market returns. We place special emphasis on downside risk by...

Using a recently developed measure of financial market risk perceptions, we show that market risk perceptions affect firm-level corporate investment and financing. While multiple channels drive these results, we find evidence that firms cater to investors’ preferences. When perceived risk is...

Default probability plays a central role in the static tradeoff theory of capital structure. We directly test this theory by regressing the probability of default on proxies for costs and benefits of debt. Contrary to predictions of the theory, firms with higher bankruptcy costs, i.e., smaller...

Default probability plays a central role in the static tradeoff theory of capital structure. We directly test this theory by regressing the probability of default on proxies for costs and benefits of debt. Contrary to predictions of the theory, firms with higher bankruptcy costs, i.e., smaller...

Probability of default plays a central role in the static tradeoff theory of capital structure. We provide a direct test of this theory by regressing the probability of default, measured by S&P credit ratings and Moody's KMV Expected Default FrequencyTM (EDFTM), on firm characteristics that...