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This paper investigates the mechanisms behind the matching of banks and firms in the loan market and the implications of this matching for lending relationships, bank capital, and credit provision. I find that bank-dependent firms borrow from well-capitalized banks, while firms with access to the bond market borrow from banks with less capital. This matching of bank-dependent firms with stable banks smooths cyclicality in aggregate credit provision and mitigates the effects of bank shocks on the real economy.

This paper examines the pricing of municipal bonds. I use three distinct, complementary approaches to decompose municipal bond spreads into default and liquidity components, and find that default risk accounts for 74% to 84% of the average spread after adjusting for tax-exempt status. The first approach estimates the liquidity component using transaction data, the second measures the default component with credit default swap data, and the third is a quasi-natural experiment that estimates changes in default risk around pre-refunding events. The price of default risk is high given the rare incidence of municipal default and implies a high risk premium.

This paper investigates the pricing of bank loans relative to capital market debt. The analysis uses a novel sample of loans matched with bond spreads from the same firm on the same date. After accounting for seniority, lenders earn a large premium relative to the bond-implied credit spread. In a sample of secured term loans to noninvestmentgrade firms, the average premium is 140 to 170 bps or about half of the all-in-drawn spread. This is the first direct evidence of firms' willingness to pay for bank credit and raises questions about the nature of competition in the loan market.

We use new hand-collected data from corporate filings to study the drivers of corporate capital structure adjustment. Classifying firms by their adjustment frequencies, we reveal previously unknown patterns in their reasons for financing and the financial instruments used. Some are consistent with existing theory, whereas others are understudied. Many leverage changes are outside of the firm’s control (e.g., executive option exercise) or incur negligible adjustment costs (e.g., credit-line usage). This implies a lower frequency of proactive leverage adjustments than indicated by prior research using accounting data, suggesting that costs of adjustment are higher, or the benefits lower, than previously thought.

This thesis studies how credit market frictions affect debt pricing and the behavior of borrowers and lenders. In the first chapter, I study the matching of corporate borrowers with banks and the implications of endogenous matching for credit provision. I find that bank-dependent firms borrow from well capitalized banks, while firms with access to the bond market borrow from banks with less capital. This matching improves access to credit during a crisis by pairing bank-dependent firms with stable banks. During the 2008 Financial Crisis, bank-dependent borrowers faced significantly greater loan supply from their relationship banks than they would have without this matching. In the second chapter, I investigate the pricing of bonds issued by states and local governments. I use three distinct, complementary approaches to decompose municipal bond spreads into default and liquidity components, finding that default risk accounts for 74% to 84% of the average municipal bond spread after adjusting for tax-exempt status. The price of default risk is high given the rare incidence of municipal default and implies a high risk premium. In the third chapter, I explore the nature of corporate capital structure adjustments. The third chapter is coauthored with Arthur Korteweg, a professor at the University of Southern California, and Ilya A. Strebulaev, my principal adviser. We show that the frequency of capital structure adjustment varies significantly across firms. Using new hand-collected data from detailed corporate filings, we find that frequently refinancing firms tend to use lines of credit, which have minimal adjustment costs, to fund operating losses and working capital needs. In contrast, infrequently refinancing firms use long-term debt and equity, which have higher issuance costs, to fund investment and rebalance capital structure. Our findings suggest that adjustment costs are an important determinant of firms' financing choices.

Working Paper No. 23967 This paper considers a sample of 3,001 private investments in public equities (PIPEs). Issuing firms tend to be small and poorly performing, so have limited access to traditional sources of finance. To attract capital, they offer shares in a PIPE at a substantial discount to the market price, along with warrants and a collection of other rights. Because of the discount at issuance, PIPE returns decline with the holding period, which itself is a function of registration status and liquidity of the shares issued in the PIPE. Assuming that the PIPE investor sells 10% of volume each day following the issuance, the average PIPE investor holds the stock for 384 days and earns an abnormal return of 21.2%. More risky firms tend to raise capital from relatively risk tolerant investors such as hedge funds and private equity funds. PIPEs issued to more constrained firms have higher holding period adjusted returns but these returns are more volatile. The abnormal holding period adjusted returns earned by PIPE investors appear to be compensation for providing capital to otherwise constrained firms.

This paper investigates the pricing of bank loans relative to the borrower's existing public bonds. After accounting for seniority, banks earn an economically large premium relative to the market price of credit risk. To quantify the premium, I apply a structural model that accounts for priority structure, prices the firm's bonds, and matches expected losses given default and secondary market bid-ask spreads. In a sample of secured term loans to non-investment-grade firms, banks earn an average rate premium of 143 bps, equal to 43% of the all-in-drawn spread. This paper provides novel evidence of firms' willingness to pay for the special qualities of bank loans.

This paper investigates the mechanisms behind the matching of banks and firms in the loan market and the implications of this matching for lending relationships, bank capital, and the provision of credit. I find that bank-dependent firms borrow from well capitalized banks, while firms with access to the bond market borrow from banks with less capital. This matching of bank-dependent firms with stable banks smooths cyclicality in aggregate credit provision and mitigates the effects of bank shocks on the real economy.

This paper examines the pricing of bonds issued by states and local governments. I use three distinct, complementary approaches to decompose municipal bond spreads into default and liquidity components, finding that default risk accounts for 74% to 84% of the average municipal bond spread after adjusting for tax-exempt status. The first approach estimates the liquidity component using transaction data, the second measures the default component with credit default swap data, and the third is a quasi-natural experiment that estimates changes in default risk around pre-refunding events. The price of default risk is high given the rare incidence of municipal default and implies a high risk premium.

We show that the partial response of loan rates to interest rate changes, referred to in the bank lending literature as “stickiness,” is a feature of perfect capital markets. No-arbitrage models of credit risk are able to replicate empirical interest rate sensitivities. However, the widespread use of interest rate floors in the low-rate environment of the last decade is a result of risk-sharing and incentive considerations arising from market imperfections. Floors reallocate cash flows across states in a way that loan spreads cannot. They insure lenders against losses if rates fall, while mitigating borrower moral hazard if rates rise.