An Empirical Analysis of the Cost of Borrowing

We empirically study firm financing costs using a comprehensive dataset of corporate bonds and bank loans. We construct a measure of financing costs, the Excess Debt Premium, which controls for observable debt characteristics. We document two key findings: first, bank loans are about 45 basis points cheaper than corporate bonds when controlling for observable characteristics. Second, there is significant dispersion in borrowing costs, even within the same firm and quarter. The analysis reveals that this within-firm variation persists after accounting for instrument type, maturity, amount, and lender identity, suggesting substantial heterogeneity in the cost of debt across different financing instruments.