Ivan Lavrov
Welcome to my website.
I am an applied economist specializing in empirical finance. I seek opportunities to apply my quantitative skills to business and regulatory questions in academic or industry settings. I earned a PhD in Economics from UCLA and am available for interviews and immediate employment in the United States.
Contact me at ilavrov113@gmail.com or LinkedIn.
My Research
The Scarring Effect of Financial Distress: Evidence from Chapter 11 Reorganizations
job market paper
Abstract Firms defaulting on their debt often do not go out of business. Instead, many of them reorganize through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Are their borrowing costs commensurate with their post-reorganization financial health? I answer this question by assembling a panel of 207 bonds from post-reorganization issuers and show that surviving a bankruptcy has a scarring effect on firms. Measuring financial health with credit ratings and borrowing costs with credit spreads, I document that in their first post-emergence year relatively financially sound firms experience higher borrowing costs than comparable never-bankrupt firms. My findings suggest that the post-reorganization bond market may be inefficient in distinguishing financially sound issuers and rewarding them with favorable borrowing costs, making it difficult to rebuild the reputation of solid debtors.
Trade Dissemination Policy, Public Registration of 144A Bonds, and Transaction Costs
draft available upon request
Abstract This paper studies the impact of transparency reforms in corporate bond markets on the transaction costs in the secondary market. I exploit public registrations of previously private Rule 144A bonds and the 2014 expansion of TRACE public dissemination policy to include Rule 144A trades as a quasi-experiment. Using a difference-in-differences strategy and transaction-level price data, I identify the effect of public trade dissemination on transaction costs faced by bond investors. I show that registration reduced transaction costs prior to 2014, but not afterward, when dissemination started to apply to both private and public bonds. This finding points to transparency as a key driver of post-registration transaction cost improvement, with stronger effects for infrequently traded bonds and large trades. Quantitatively, I estimate that trade dissemination reduced transaction costs by 19% relative to their pre-registration level. Using dealer-level data, I further show that transaction cost reductions are driven by pricing adjustments among incumbent dealers rather than dealer entry and exit following registration events.