Corporate Financial Distress and Bankruptcy has moved into a public domain due to therecent global financial crisis that witnessed failures of many venerable institutions that wererescued by the government. This led to landmark legislation in the form of the Dodd-Frank WallStreet Reform and Consumer Protection Act to provide resolution authority similar to privateworkouts but under government authority. This survey will highlight the resolution mechanismsnot only in the private domain but also in the public domain and will use corporate financeparadigms to interpret some of these far-reaching developments in financial distress ofsystemic nature. Section II provides the institutional features of financial distress andbankruptcy, focusing on the workings of the US bankruptcy system. Section III provides areview of the major theoretical developments in corporate financial distress and bankruptcy.Section IV reviews the available empirical work on financial distress and bankruptcy andexamines the question about the extent to which financial distress and bankruptcy costs aresignificant, and the extent to which these costs are internalized and externalized. The sectionalso highlights important changes that have taken place over the last two decades in bothprivate workouts and court-supervised resolution mechanisms. Section V looks atcomparative bankruptcy codes around the world, which tend to vary along creditor rights andfinancial distress resolution mechanisms. Section VI examines the systemic nature of financialdistress and bankruptcy. The authors provide a summary of all the discussions in Section VIIso that readers can get a concise overview of the essential topics covered in this survey andsome direction for future research on corporate financial distress and bankruptcy.