Why don't non-financial companies in Europe issue more equity? Using experimental data on firms from Europe, this paper analyses how firms trade-off between debt and external equity financing. It finds that firms are willing to pay a substantial premium on debt when presented with an equity...

We argue that the recent corporate governance reform in the Netherlands provides a natural experiment to explore the impact of changes in corporate governance on financing policy. We find that, relative to a control sample of comparable firms outside the Netherlands, Dutch firms significantly...

We show that a policy rate cut lengthens corporate debt maturity. A 1 standard deviation (10 basis points, b.p.) expansionary interest rate shock raises the share of long-term debt by 87 b.p., explaining about 20% of its variation. Moreover, we show that only large, bond-issuing firms adjust. A...

We find that firms behave consistently with how their CEOs behave personally in the context of leverage choices. Analyzing data on CEOs' leverage in their most recent primary home purchases, we find a positive, economically relevant, robust relation between corporate and personal leverage in the...

Private sector borrowing has been identified as a major factor behind the euro crisis. We study the contribution of non-financial public corporations to this finding. Using data from eleven euro countries and a control group of five other European countries over 1991-2006, we show that firms...

We study the financing policies of European public corporations prior to the euro crisis. Using data from eleven euro countries and a control group of five other European countries over 1991-2006, we show that non-financial firms from euro countries with previously weak currencies considerably...

In this study, we examine the impact of fair value accounting on corporate debt structures, i.e., debt conversion privilege and maturity term. We argue that fair value accounting affects agency conflicts between debtholders and shareholders via its impact on financial reporting quality....

This paper analyzes the effect of corporate debt offerings on stock prices. Straight debt offerings have non-positive price effects, while convertible debt offerings have significantly negative effects. Public utility mortgage (non-convertible) bond offerings have marginally negative effects,...

The median U.S. non-regulated firm reports a 47 percent decline in leverage ratio between 1980 and 2010. We investigate whether the cost-benefit tradeoff to shareholders, captured by the valuation impact of an additional dollar of debt on owners' equity, is an explanation for the observed change...

Using a cross-country sample of bank-dependent public firms we study the international spillovers of a change in banking regulation on corporate borrowing. For identification we examine how US firms' liabilities vis-à-vis banks, non-bank lenders and bond markets evolve after an increase in...