Gunjan Seth - Research

Job Market Paper

Do rights offerings reduce bargaining complexity in Chapter 11?

This paper investigates the role of rights offerings in U.S. Chapter 11 reorganizations as a new market-based mechanism for mitigating bargaining frictions. Using novel hand-collected data, I document three facts: (i) over the past two decades, rights offerings financed 35% of large bankruptcies, (ii) they are predominantly proposed and underwritten by hedge funds, and (iii) their occurrence is highly correlated with stock market performance. In an instrumental variable setting, I find that compared with other sources of financing, rights offerings lead to higher creditor recoveries, shorter reorganization durations, and lower refiling rates. They also allow firms to access new capital without resorting to asset liquidations, which are value-reducing. My findings suggest that by alleviating key bargaining frictions in large and complex bankruptcy cases, rights offerings may improve the efficiency of resource allocation in the economy.

Winner, Midwest Finance Association, Paul Van Arsdell Outstanding Paper Award in Corporate Finance, 2023

Winner, German Finance Association Doctoral Student Best Paper Award, 2022

Finalist, AQR Fellowship Award for Research Excellence, 2022

Featured by Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog

Conferences and Seminars: American Law & Economics Association* (ALEA) 2025, Western Finance Association (WFA) 2024, NBER Law and Economics Meeting 2024, CLS-LawFin Workshop 2024, American Finance Association (AFA) 2024, Copenhagen Business School, HEC Paris, HKU Business School, HKUST, INSEAD, Kelley School of Business, LSE, Michigan Ross, NUS, Rutgers Business School, UBC Sauder School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USC Marshall, UVA Darden, UW Foster School of Business, Warwick Business School, Wharton, European Finance Association (EFA) 2023, Northern Finance Association (NFA) 2022, Financial Management Association (FMA Europe) 2022, German Finance Association (DGF) 2022, Corporate Restructuring and Insolvency Seminar, Midwest Finance Association (MFA) 2023, Transatlantic Doctoral Conference 2022, London Business School Alumni Workshop 2022, Nova Finance Final Countdown 2022, HEC Paris Finance Workshop 2022

Working Papers

Fire Sale and Misallocation
with Julian Franks, Oren Sussman, Vikrant Vig

Using data from aircraft sales by distressed airlines, we examine the extent to which fire sales lead to misallocation of assets. Our results show that aircraft, on average, are reallocated from lower productivity sellers to higher productivity buyers. Moreover, in the hands of new owners, aircraft purchased from distressed sellers have lower productivity compared with other similar aircraft operated by the same buyer. This lower productivity is consistent with long-term quality impairment resulting from undermaintenance of the aircraft by distressed sellers. Controlling for undermaintenance in hedonic regressions, the high fire sale discounts reported by Pulvino (1998, 1999) are halved in magnitude. The evidence suggests fire sales, instead of triggering a misallocation, terminate it.

Conferences and Seminars: Northeastern University Finance Conference 2022, London Business School 2021, Transatlantic Doctoral Conference 2021, American Finance Association (AFA) 2021

The Limits of Coase: A Study of Financial Distress in the Shipping Industry
with Julian Franks, Oren Sussman, Vikrant Vig

The shipping industry provides a unique laboratory for examining the limits of Coase for resolving financial distress since the industry is largely detached from sovereign bankruptcy procedures. We find that private contracts and institutions have evolved to resolve coordination failures: for example, we find a low incidence of vessel seizures, ports that compete to enforce creditor rights, and small fire sale discounts. However, we report significant spillovers of financial distress for other stakeholders, particularly environmental, who bear the costs of under maintained vessels, including oil spills, and abandonment of derelict ships, which end up in toxic breaker yards.

Conferences and Seminars: American Finance Association (AFA) 2025

Work in Progress

Jurisdiction Shopping and Pollution Relocation

with Zheng Li, Vikrant Vig

Recipient of Research Grant from Wheeler Institute

* Scheduled