The Secular Decline in Private Firm Leverage

We are thankful to our discussant Brent Glover. We are also thankful for helpful comments from seminar participants at the 2023 UO Summer Finance Conference and the 2023 OTA Conference. All remaining errors are our own. The analysis and conclusions set forth are those of the authors and do not indicate concurrence by other members of the Federal Reserve research staff or the Board of Governors. This research was conducted while Andrew was an employee of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or the official positions of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, nor those of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Any taxpayer data used in this research was kept in a secured Treasury or IRS data repository, and all results have been reviewed to ensure that no confidential information is disclosed.

• May 10, 2022