Employees bear significant costs in bankruptcy. Theoretical models predict they will accept lower wages in the face of financial distress to avoid such costs. Using a natural experiment, I test this theory and find an exogenous increase in default risk causes a decrease in employee wages. The effect is economically meaningful: the reduction in aggregate annual wages equals 10% of the firm's earnings and 33% of its interest expense. As expected, it is concentrated in financially vulnerable firms and those with fewer agency conflicts. Employees thus represent an important financial resource for firms in the midst of financial distress.

中文翻译：

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财务困境和劳动力成本：来自自然实验的证据

员工在破产中承担了巨大的成本。理论模型预测他们会在面临财务困境时接受较低的工资以避免此类成本。使用自然实验，我测试了这个理论，发现违约风险的外生增加会导致员工工资下降。这种影响在经济上是有意义的：年工资总额的减少相当于公司收入的 10% 和利息支出的 33%。正如预期的那样，它集中在财务脆弱的公司和代理冲突较少的公司。因此，员工是处于财务困境中的公司的重要财务资源。