We find that US public firms spread out their debt more across different sources in recession quarters, making measures of debt concentration move pro-cyclically, on average. There is substantial cross-sectional variation in these dynamics. In particular, firms with already low leverage and high...

Executive compensation influences managerial risk preferences through the executive's portfolio sensitivities to changes in stock prices (delta) and stock return volatility (vega). Large deltas discourage managerial risk-taking, while large vegas encourage risk-taking. Theory suggests that...