We investigate the trade-off between incentive provision and inefficient rollover freezes for a firm financed with staggered short-term debt. First, debt maturity that is too short-term is inefficient, even with incentive provision. The optimal maturity is an interior solution that avoids...

This paper analyzes the joint responses of commodity futures prices and traders' futures positions to changes in the VIX before and after the recent financial crisis. We find that while financial traders accommodate the needs of commercial hedgers in normal times, in times of distress, financial...

We study the joint responses of commodity futures prices and positions of various trader groups to changes of the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) before and after the recent financial crisis. Financial traders reduced their net long positions during the crisis in response to market distress, while...

Many believe that compensation, misaligned from shareholders' value due to managerial entrenchment, caused financial firms to take creative risks before the Financial Crisis of 2008. We argue instead that even in a classical principal-agent setting without entrenchment and with exogenous...

This paper analyzes the joint responses of commodity futures prices and traders' futures positions to changes in the VIX before and after the recent financial crisis. We find that while financial traders accommodate the needs of commercial hedgers in normal times, in times of distress, financial...