This paper examines to what extent credit ratings directly affect capital structure decisions. The paper outlines discrete costs/benefits associated with firm credit rating level differences, and tests whether concerns for these costs/benefits directly affect debt and equity financing decisions. The tests find that firms near a rating upgrade or downgrade issue less debt relative to equity than...

We assess the credit market impact of allowing mortgage “strip-down” as a foreclosureprevention measure, where strip-down reduces the principal of underwater residential mortgages to the current market value of the property for homeowners in Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Our identification is provided by a series of U.S. court decisions that introduced strip-down in parts of the U.S. and a Supreme Cou...

The reliability of confessions is subject to a variety of factors, some of which give rise to expert testimony. To the degree that prosecutors construe the determination of reliability as an objective standard, they may attempt to bar testimony. Moreover, when the testimony is theoretical rather than clinical, there are additional challenges. Depending on jurisdiction, the admissibility of expe...

There is wide debate over the causes and ultimate importance of the pecking order and debt conservatism to firm financing decisions. We argue that these empirical patterns are not driven solely by firmand market level variation, but are also linked to individual managerial characteristics. We relate the reluctance of (some) managers to access external capital markets, and particularly equity ma...

BACKGROUND Whether activity-based financing of hospitals creates incentives to treat more patients and to reduce the length of each hospital stay is an empirical question that needs investigation. This paper examines how the level of the activity-based component in the financing system of Norwegian hospitals influences the average length of hospital stays for elderly patients suffering from isc...

Technology innovations continue to be one of the greatest drivers of economic growth. Realizing the value of such innovations, however, requires substantial follow-on investments in development and commercialization. The value of these investments depends on not only the demand, but also actions by potential competitors, which are uncertain at the time of the investment. This uncertainty create...

To fulfill their growth aspirations, entrepreneurial ventures depend on shortterm, liquid sources of debt financing such as bank loans. However, because of the twin problems of information asymmetry and moral hazard, banks make their lending decisions by considering the venture’s creditworthiness score provided by private information exchanges. Using theoretical arguments grounded in venture fi...

Analyzing cash flows and undertaking project financing are important for contractors in managing construction projects. Traditional methods for cash flow analysis are based on the manual integration of time and cost information. However, the manual integration process can be automated by using five-dimensional building information modeling (5D BIM). Previous studies on 5D BIM have focused on es...