Working Paper: NBER ID: w25922
Authors: John R. Graham; Hyunseob Kim; Si Li; Jiaping Qiu
Abstract: An employee’s annual earnings fall by 10% the year her firm files for bankruptcy and fall by a cumulative present value of 67% over seven years. This effect is more pronounced in thin labor markets and among small firms that are ultimately liquidated. Compensating wage differentials for this “bankruptcy risk” are approximately 2.3% of firm value for a firm whose credit rating falls from AA to BBB, about the same magnitude as debt tax benefits. Thus, wage premia for expected costs of bankruptcy are of sufficient magnitude to be an important consideration in corporate capital structure decisions.
Keywords: corporate bankruptcy; employee earnings; capital structure; wage differentials; financial distress
JEL Codes: G32; G33; J21; J31; J61
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Corporate bankruptcy (G33) | Employee earnings (J31) |
| Employee earnings (J31) | Employee earnings two years after bankruptcy (K35) |
| Corporate bankruptcy (G33) | Present value of earnings losses over seven years (J17) |
| Bankruptcy risk (G33) | Compensating wage differentials (J31) |
| Compensating wage differentials (J31) | Tax benefits of corporate debt (G32) |