Catastrophe (Cat) bonds are insurance securitization vehicles which are supposed to transfer catastrophe-related underwriting risk from issuers to capital markets. This paper addresses key, unanswered questions concerning Cat bonds and offers the following results. First, our findings show firms...

We find that common equity firms pay lower D&O insurance premiums than income trusts, an alternative and riskier ownership form. This result has wide-ranging implications for investors insofar as the information provided by D&O insurers provides investors with an unbiased signal of the firm's...

We propose a novel approach to measure the value that shareholders assign to financial flexibility. In contrast to existing proxies for financial constraints, our measure is market-based, forward-looking and not directly influenced by past financial decisions. We find that firms for which...

Compelling empirical evidence documenting a material effect of corporate taxes on leverage decisions is limited, in part because of difficulties in constructing an effective proxy for the firm's tax benefit of debt. We examine leverage decisions across taxable and nontaxable real estate...

We analyze the impact of expected (targeted) capital structure decisions on information asymmetries. We measure information asymmetry from equity liquidity through the use of an information asymmetry index that is based on six measures that capture trading activity, trading costs, and the price...

We evaluate motives for share repurchases using a unified framework where a firm has a target capital structure and has equity that can be mispriced. We document that capital structure adjustments are a value-increasing motive for repurchases and that the extent to which adjusting capital...

This study analyzes the reactions of equity holders and bondholders to the announcement of 427 preferred stock issues. We document an average equity announcement effect of −0.65%. This reaction is positively influenced by a number of measures of firm creditworthiness and transparency and is...

We analyze the zero-leverage phenomenon around the world. Countries with a common law system, high creditor protection, and a dividend imputation or dividend relief tax system exhibit the highest percentage of zero-leverage firms. The increasing prevalence of zero-leverage firms in all sample...

U.S. firms currently hold a $2trillion cash stockpile. We examine if cash stockpiles fuel cash acquisitions by studying the method of payment decision for cash-rich firms. Surprisingly, cash-rich firms are 23% less likely to make cash bids than stock bids, relative to firms that are not cash...

Results of empirical studies of the trade-off theory of capital structure indicate that an important, stable factor is missing from traditional leverage regression models. Our review of theory leads us to the hypothesis that the missing factor is related to profitable growth options (GOs)....