SFS Cavalcade North America 2026
Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia
May 18-21, 2026
Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 18th Apr 2026, 05:18:27am EDT
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Agenda Overview |
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Track TH8-5: Depository Institutions and FinTech
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Strategic Bankruptcy and Corporate Negligence 1Harvard Business School; 2University of Georgia; 3University of Michigan Firms facing serious litigation can use bankruptcy as a negotiating tactic. We develop a dynamic capital structure model in which firms choose negligence levels that boost short-run profits but create litigation risk. The model reveals substantial risk-shifting: highly leveraged firms engage in excessive negligence because limited liability allows them to shift expected litigation costs to creditors and tort victims through bankruptcy. After estimating the model, we evaluate four policy regimes corresponding to recent legal debates. Legalizing Texas Two-Step bankruptcies, which shield firms from litigation with minimal consequences, would produce catastrophic increases in negligence and harm victims despite eliminating bankruptcy costs. Protecting tort victims in bankruptcy with either superpriority or enhanced bargaining rights improves outcomes modestly. Comprehensive reform combining both of these protections dominates: negligence declines, victim recovery triples, and firm equity values increase, as both productive investment and improved deterrence benefit shareholders.
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