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Corporate borrowing has substantially changed over the last two decades. In this article, we investigate changes in borrowing of US publicly listed firms along trends in five key areas: (a) the funding mix of firms and the importance of balance-sheet versus off-balance-sheet borrowing; (b) the costs of corporate borrowing; (c) trends in nonprice loan terms; (d) the importance of banks versus nonbank institutional investors; and (e) the purpose for corporate borrowing. We explore these trends graphically over the 2002–2019 period, provide a narrative for these trends based on the theoretical and empirical literature in the respective areas, and discuss some implications for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Finally, we document these trends for firms in the Eurozone countries and delineate similarities and differences.
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Download Supplemental Appendices 1-2 (PDF). Includes Supplemental Figures 1-5.