This paper studies how default varies with aggregate income. We analyze a model in which optimal contracts enable risk sharing of privately observed, idiosyncratic income by allowing for default. Default provisions allow agents with low idiosyncratic income realizations to repay less and thus provide insurance. Default penalties ensure that only these agents default. We show that default can oc...

Since observed audit opinions do not generally become more favourable after companies switch auditors, it has been argued that companies do not successfully engage in opinion-shopping. Rather than comparing observed preand post-switch audit reports, this study tests for opinion-shopping by predicting the opinions companies would have received had they made opposite switch decisions. My results ...

A standard assumption of structural models of default is that firms assets evolve exogenously. In this paper, we document the importance of accounting for investment options in models of credit risk. In the presence of financing and investment frictions, firm-level variables which proxy for asset composition carry explanatory power for credit spreads beyond leverage. As a result, cross-sectiona...

We construct a comprehensive dataset of patent sales conducted by all US public firms in Chapter 11 bankruptcy from 1981 to 2012. We document that 40% of firms sell, on average, 18% of their patents during bankruptcy reorganizations. Innovation sales concentrate in the first two quarters after bankruptcy filing. Firms sell more redeployable and liquid patents, as opposed to selling underexploit...

Using staggered changes to debt contract enforcement costs in India, we estimate it’s causal effect on financing and asset maturity. A reduction in enforcement costs is associated with an increase in long-term debt and a decrease in short-term debt and trade-credit. The increase in debt maturity is confined to firms that borrow from multiple and diverse set of lenders and to smaller firms. Firm...

This paper provides a comprehensive examination of corporate responses to financial distress during an economy-wide crisis, specifically through the restructuring of assets (through asset sales, mergers, or liquidations) and/or liabilities. Using firm-level data from five countries hardest hit by the East Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, this study contrasts the effects that financial and cor...

This article presents a high-performance lead-free piezoelectric energy harvester (LPEH) system for magnetic field. It based on Ba0.85Ca0.15Ti0.90Zr0.10O3 + CuO 0.3 wt% (BCTZC0.3) composite was fabricated by sintering at 1450 °C. The BCTZC0.3 composite, which has an enhanced high conversion constant (d33×g33), shows improved power-generation performance when compared with conventional harvester...

I provide a micro-foundation for dynamically incomplete contracts that are renegotiated over time. The micro-foundation is based on showing that such contracts implement the optimal complete contract in a general dynamic model provided the players have “preference-for-robustness.” Preference-for-robustness is a way of modeling players perpetually having a fuzzy idea as time passes about events ...

This paper studies the economic impact of the current global economic downturn on the household sector. Household budgets can be negatively affected by declines in nominal wages and increases in unemployment. We empirically test this effect for the Czech economy. As a result of the lack of individual data on the Czech household finances, micro data are simulated. Our analysis clearly points out...