Financial distress in the Great Depression / John R. Graham, Sonali Hazarika, Krishnamoorthy Narasimhan.

Author/creator Graham, John R.
Other author Hazarika, Sonali.
Other author Narasimhan, Krishnamoorthy.
Other author National Bureau of Economic Research.
Format Electronic
Publication InfoCambridge, MA : National Bureau of Economic Research,
Supplemental ContentFull text available from NBER Working Papers

SeriesNBER working paper series ; working paper 17388
Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ; working paper no. 17388. UNAUTHORIZED
Summary "We use firm-level data to study corporate performance during the Great Depression era for all industrial firms on the NYSE. Our goal is to identify the factors that contribute to business insolvency and valuation changes during the period 1928 to 1938. We find that firms with more debt and lower bond ratings in 1928 became financially distressed more frequently during the Depression, consistent with the trade-off theory of leverage and the information production role of credit rating agencies. We also document for the first time that firms responded to tax incentives to use debt during the Depression era, but that the extra debt used in response to this tax-driven "debt bias" did not contribute significantly to the occurrence of distress. Finally, we conduct an out of sample test during the recent 2008-2009 Recession and find that higher leverage and lower bond ratings also increased the occurrence of financial distress during this period"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
General noteTitle from PDF file as viewed on 11/29/2011.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references.
Access restrictionAvailable only to authorized users.
Other formsAlso available in print.
Technical detailsMode of access: World Wide Web
Genre/formElectronic books.
LCCN 2011657329

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