RCFS News

              The impact of COVID-19 has driven many firms into financial distress, and policymakers around the world have responded with various emergency measures to support the business sector. While the immediate priority has been to get support out quickly to firms, over time more active decisions will have to be made on which firms should be supported. A potential danger that arises is that… Read More »Paper Spotlight: Identifying the Real Effects of Zombie Lending

In the new entry on the RCFS blog, Executive Editor Andrew Ellul dives into “Banks’ Non-Interest Income and Systemic Risk” by Markus K. Brunnermeier, Gang Nathan Dong, and Darius Palia. This paper was the Editor’s Choice for the August issue. Read the full post on the blog.  

The Review of Corporate Financial Studies (RCFS) is enacting a Code Sharing Policy for papers accepted for publication, which will be effective on October 1, 2020. The policy is available here. This policy reflects the commitment of the RCFS to the highest standards of quality, as we believe that the policy will help improve the reproducibility and replicability of published research and by this will support the credibility and impact of this… Read More »Code Sharing Policy Effective October 1

            Having learned from the financial crisis, policymakers the world over have reacted to the COVID-19 lockdowns by providing a lot of liquidity, in the form of debt, to the business sector. However, the longer it takes to make a full recovery, the greater is the danger that firms may find themselves not just illiquid in the short-run, but insolvent in the long-run. That is,… Read More »Paper Spotlight: The COVID-19 Shock and Equity Shortfall: Firm Level Evidence from Italy

Governments all over the world have responded to the COVID-19 outbreak by closing down significant parts of their economies, leading to a liquidity crisis for many firms. Default risk increased because firms’ stream of cash flows took a hit, and with it firms’ rollover risk. How did firms behave in their bid to shore up their precarious liquidity positions? In the paper “The Risk of Being a Fallen Angel and… Read More »Paper Spotlight: The Risk of Being a Fallen Angel and the Corporate Dash for Cash in the Midst of COVID

“Stock Market Information and Innovative Investment in the Supply Chain” by Lantian Liang, Ryan Williams, and Steven Chong Xiao

Here is an interesting fact that spans corporate finance and asset pricing: among U.S. public firms, innovation is mostly concentrated in a very small group of large corporations, and innovation “leaders” experience lower systematic risk than the “laggards.” Jan Bena and Lorenzo Garlappi, in their paper “Corporate Innovation and Returns,” investigate this fact by, first, proposing a winner-takes-all patent-race model, and then empirically showing that a firm’s expected return decreases… Read More »Paper Spotlight: Corporate Innovation and Returns

We are living through a pandemic-induced recession that has slashed many firms’ cash flows with a consequent negative impact on both employment and wage levels. Firms, fighting for survival, will be pressed to cut costs, and wages are an important budget line for the vast majority of firms. At the same time, workers are important assets for firms’ survival and prosperity. What are the effects of paying higher wages on… Read More »Paper Spotlight: Wages and Firm Performance: Evidence from the 2008 Financial Crisis

“Competition for Flow and Short-Termism in Activism” by Mike Burkart and Amil Dasgupta