The benefit of life insurance contracts with capped index participation when stock prices are subject to jump risk

We analyze the benefit to the insured of newly traded, innovative life insurance contracts. On a sequence of yearly reference days, the insured can choose between a guaranteed return (linked to the insurer’s asset result) and a capped index participation. The cap is adjusted at the beginning of each year such that both alternatives have the same value and the option to select is costless (product structuring condition). We point out that this condition cannot always be met. If the guaranteed return exceeds the upper bound of the capped index participation, the insurer can make a side profit. We show that a rather low insurance result also implies a rather low stock exposure, even if the insured opts for the index participation. Concerning the impact of the index dynamics, we emphasize that it is important to distinguish between jump and diffusion risk because the pricing of jump risk has an impact on cap rates that can be offered to an insured. Finally, we show that the optimal decision strategy of a CRRA investor implies an index selection even if it is unfairly priced such that the insurer indeed makes a side profit.     

关联担保、被担保企业的盈余特征与担保企业的债务契约

本文从担保视角考察了被担保企业的盈余特征对担保企业债务契约的影响,以及双方的关联关系在其中的作用。实证检验发现,被担保企业盈余质量越高,担保企业获取的债务契约越有利,银行能够部分识别被担保企业的盈余信息,盈余信息对银行是有利用价值的。进一步研究发现,当担保双方具有关联关系时,被担保企业的盈余特征与担保企业的债务契约之间的关系会弱化,关联关系事实上部分替代了企业盈余特征所起到的信息作用。     

Sovereign bond market reactions to no-bailout clauses and fiscal rules – The Swiss experience

We analyse the effects of a credible no-bailout policy and stringent sub-national fiscal rules on the risk premia of Swiss sub-national government bonds in the period from 1981 to 2007. In July 2003, the Swiss Supreme Court decided that the canton of Valais is not liable for municipal debt. This landmark decision reduced cantonal risk premia by about 26 basis points and cut the link between cantonal risk premia and the financial situation of the municipalities that existed before. The result demonstrates that a not fully credible no-bailout commitment can entail high costs for the potential guarantor. Additionally, strong and credible balanced budget rules reduce risk premia.     

What the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation can learn from the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation

This article attempts to draw attention to some important lessons that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) can learn from the experience of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC). FSLIC was the government agency that insured deposits at savings and loan associations until it was replaced in 1989, leaving a massive deficit to be financed by taxpayers. Like FSLIC, the PBGC is a government agency that guarantees a form of private corporate debt. As guarantor of the pension benefits promised by private plan sponsors, the PBGC bears the risk of a shortfall between the value of insured benefits and the assets securing those benefits. There has been a significant change in the attitude and behavior of senior public officials and legislators as a result of the S&L debacle. Directors of the PBGC and the Secretaries of Labor to whom they report have pointed out the weaknesses of some of the pension funds that the PBGC insures and have pursued an active legislative agenda designed to reduce the PBGC's vulnerability to those weaknesses. Those efforts have resulted in a series of laws and amendments to laws that have significantly improved the U.S. pension guarantee system. But the magnitude of the PBGC's exposure to shortfall risk depends on three factors: (1) the financial strength of plan sponsors, (2) the degree of underfunding of insured benefits, and (3) the mismatch between the market-risk exposure of insured benefits (a form of long-term corporate debt) and the market-risk exposure of the assets securing that debt. Only the first two of these have been addressed by past legislative reforms. The third factor appears not to be well understood. It is apparently a widespread belief among policymakers that a well-diversified pension portfolio of equity securities provides an effective long-run hedge against liabilities of defined-benefit pension plans, so that there is no mismatch problem. This belief is mistaken. Equities are not a hedge against fixed-income liabilities even in the long run. Thus, even if the PBGC achieves the goal of full funding at one point in time, the mismatch between the market-risk exposure of the pension benefits that it insures and the pension assets backing them creates the potential for large shortfall losses in the future as the economy and capital market rates change in unpredictable ways. Therein lies an uncomfortable parallel with the S&L debacle.     

Insured uncovered interest parity

The current literature suggests that uncovered interest parity (UIP) does not hold because of differences in risk in holding different currency denominated debt. We test whether this risk is related to sovereign credit risk in government bonds. We consider an insured uncovered interest parity relationship – that is, one where debt is insured with credit default swap (CDS) contracts. CDS rates help explain the UIP puzzle but have no predictive power for carry trade returns and currency movements.     

基础设施债权投资计划的交易结构与风险管理

基础设施债权投资计划作为一种创新型金融产品,融合了多种金融工具的优势,与企业债券、银行贷款以及项目融资相比,债权计划的优势体现在其主动投资的功能。所谓主动投资,是在交易结构的设计中寻求偿债主体、项目、担保人之间恰当的偿债结构安排,也是在风险管理的实践中,运用富于针对性的积极方法,以确保偿债安排得以顺利实现。因而,深入领会法规本意,分析债权计划各种交易关系,吸收其他债务投融资工具的优势,选择与交易结构相对应的风险管理方法,共同形成了债权投资计划这一新型投融资工具得以平稳、有效运作的实践方法框架。     

THE IMPACT OF FINANCING SOURCES ON MULTINATIONAL PROJECTS

It is shown here that market imperfections, such as corporate taxes, are not a necessary condition for a firm to have a debt denomination preference. When the stochastic nature of project cash flows and exchange rates are explicitly considered, the risk of the project is affected by the source of borrowing used to finance the project. It is also shown that the existence of income taxes causes the expected net present value and risk of a foreign project to depend on the source of the firm's borrowing. The debt denomination preference in both cases depends on project- and country-specific variables.     

社会信用、刚兑信仰与地方政府隐性债务

防范化解地方政府隐性债务风险是当前我国亟待解决的重要问题。本文基于2007年至2019年293个地级市面板数据,研究社会信用对地方政府隐性债务的影响。我们发现:(1)社会信用下滑会导致地方政府隐性债务规模提高和融资成本上升。(2)社会信用通过影响市场金融资源供给和政府债务需求进而影响隐性债务规模与融资成本,但上述机制在有无“刚兑信仰”情境下存在差异。(3)对比新《预算法》和“43号文”出台前后社会信用对隐性债务影响的异质性发现,债务管制显著提高了融资平台的市场化程度。虽然政策前期金融市场更多呈现出一种观望态度,但违约事件打破了金融市场对地方政府隐性债务的“刚兑信仰”,隐性债务发行受到的市场约束力度显著增强。本文对更好地认识地方政府隐性债务风险、理解当前债务治理措施的有效性以及未来如何通过完善社会信用体系建设化解地方政府隐性债务风险具有启示意义。     

Seeking safety: The relation between CEO inside debt holdings and the riskiness of firm investment and financial policies

CEO inside debt holdings (pension benefits and deferred compensation) are generally unsecured and unfunded liabilities of the firm. Because these characteristics of inside debt expose the CEO to default risk similar to that faced by outside creditors, theory predicts that CEOs with large inside debt holdings will display lower levels of risk-seeking behavior (Jensen and Meckling, 1976). Consistent with the theoretical predictions, we find a negative association between CEO inside debt holdings and the volatility of future firm stock returns, R&D expenditures, and financial leverage, and a positive association between CEO inside debt holdings and the extent of diversification and asset liquidity. Collectively, our results provide empirical evidence suggesting that CEOs with large inside debt holdings prefer investment and financial policies that are less risky.     

Financial experts on the top management team: Do they reduce investment inefficiency?

We examine the effect of the top management team (TMT) professional finance experience on firm investment efficiency. Top managers with a career background in finance help reduce deviations of investment from the level warranted by firm fundamentals. Reductions in investment inefficiencies are achieved by financial expert managers using project-specific rather than company-wide, discount rates for project evaluation and facilitating debt and equity issuance at lower costs. Greater investment efficiency due to the financial expertise of TMT improves firm performance. We demonstrate that these improvements are driven by the collective expertise of the TMT rather than solely by chief executive officers.     

企业发债和贷款期限的差异化:基于增量法的实证研究

已有文献主要从资产负债表法来实证研究企业负债期限结构的影响因素,本文以我国企业在1998～2008年企业发行的各类债券和银行贷款为研究对象,运用增量法从企业财务特征和债务契约属性等方面对企业增量债务期限的影响因素进行实证研究,采用了GMM计量方法,并通过对比分析筛选出了影响企业发债和贷款期限差异化的关键因素。研究表明:企业规模越大,利润率越高,具备担保,信用评级和授信比率越高,其债务期限越长。企业若选择发债,债务期限会延长,而选择银行贷款则企业债务期限会缩短。     

Firms' Off-Balance Sheet and Hybrid Debt Financing: Evidence from Their Book-Tax Reporting Differences

We match large U.S. corporations' tax returns during 1989–2001 to their financial statements to construct a firm‐level proxy of firms' use of off‐balance sheet and hybrid debt financing. We find that firms with less favorable prior‐period Standard & Poor's (S&P) bond ratings or higher leverage ratios in comparison to their industry report greater amounts of interest expense on their tax returns than to investors and creditors on their financial statements. These between‐firm results are consistent with credit‐constrained firms using more structured financing arrangements. Our within‐firm tests also suggest that firms use more structured financing arrangements when they enter into contractual loan agreements that provide incentives to manage debt ratings. Specifically, we find that after controlling for S&P bond rating and industry‐adjusted leverage, our sample firms report greater amounts of interest expenses for tax than for financial statement purposes when they enter into performance pricing contracts that use senior debt rating covenants to set interest rates. Furthermore, we find that the greatest book‐tax reporting changes occur when firms become closer to violating these debt rating covenants. These latter findings are consistent with firms' contractual debt covenants influencing their use of off‐balance sheet and hybrid debt financing.     

Sources of Financing,Profitability and Productivity: First Evidence from Matched Firms

This paper contributes to the literature on capital structure and firm performance. Using firm‐level data covering over 11,000 firms from 47 countries over a recent period of 1997‐2007, we address the effect of different sources of financing on corporate performance, employing a matching process, which allows an adequate `like‐for‐like’ comparison between high and low level of financing by firms. Robust to different matching estimators, the main findings are consistent with the theories of capital structure, in that firms with high debt‐to‐equity ratio tend to have lower returns to shareholders (profitability) and lower internal efficiency (productivity). The results become more robust when we separate the firms into advanced and emerging country‐groups or countries with high/low levels of financial development. Given the lower level of leverage below 50% on average in emerging markets (or in countries with lower level of financial reforms), firms in these economies face lower risk of financial distress and thereby less adverse effect on firm profitability and productivity, relative to their counterparts in advanced economies. We also find that retained earnings and equity financing improve performance, while debt financing by firms particularly in the form of bank loans leads to lower performance, although not so in the case of debt raised through issuing bonds.     

When do banks take equity in debt restructurings?

This article examines the conditions under which bank lendersmake concessions by taking equity in financially distressedfirms. I show that the role banks play in debt restructuringsdepends on the financial condition of the firm, the existenceof public debt in the firm's capital structure and the abilityof public debt to be restructured. Empirically, I find thatfor firms with public debt outstanding, banks never make concessionsunless public debtholders also restructure their claims. Whenbanks do take equity, on average they obtain a substantial proportionof the firm's stock, and they maintain their position for overtwo years.     

The effects on investment incentives of an allowance for corporate equity tax system: the Belgian case as an example

The Modigliani–Miller theorem serves as the standard finance paradigm on corporate capital structure and managerial decision making. Implicitly, it is assumed that the market possesses full information about the firm. However, if firm managers have insider information, they may attempt to ‘signal’ changes in the firm’s financial structure and, in competitive equilibrium, shareholders will draw deductions from such signals. Empirical work shows that the value of underlying firms rises with leverage because investors expect such firms to implement positive NPV projects. We empirically examine this view using a sample of debt issue announcements by publicly traded firms listed on the London Stock Exchange. We argue that the timing of debt issues is fundamental in determining the relationship between leverage and risk-adjusted returns. We show that an announcing firm’s intrinsic value may not rise depending on when management publicly ‘signals’ changes in their firm’s capital structure. Specifically, we show that risk-adjusted returns rise positively for firms that make debt announcements during normal economic conditions while they tend to decline for firms making debt announcements during recessionary periods. During recessionary periods, market risk and loss aversion rise and investors focus less on the potential growth of debt announcing firms and focus more on potential losses instead. We conclude that the timing of new debt is of paramount importance and managers’ inability to prudently time such announcements can lead to exacerbated levels of systematic risk coupled with a significant erosion in shareholder wealth.     

自由现金流量创造力与违约风险——来自A股公司的经验证据

本文基于我国A股上市公司数据,研究了企业自由现金流量创造力与违约风险之间的关系。研究发现：(1)企业自由现金流量创造力越强,其违约风险越低。经过一系列稳健性检验后,该结论依旧成立。(2)自由现金流量创造力越强的企业往往有更低的债务规模、更高的资产收益率和更低的股票波动,因而其违约风险更低。(3)自由现金流量创造力与违约风险的负相关关系,主要存在于货币政策紧缩时期以及外部信息环境较差的企业。本文发现意味着,监管部门和投资者应重视上市公司自由现金流量创造力不足所带来的潜在债务违约风险,通过不断提高公司自由现金流量创造力,助力我国宏观经济与微观企业高质量发展。     

The design of bank loan contracts

The unique characteristics of bank loans emerge endogenouslyto enhance efficiency in a model of renegotiation between aborrower and a lender in which there is the potential for moralhazard on each side of the relationship. Firm risk is endogenousand renegotiated interest rates on the debt need not be monotonein firm risk. The initial terms of the debt are not set to pricedefault risk but rather are set to efficiently balance bargainingpower in later renegotiation. Loan pricing may be nonlinear,involving initial transfers either from the borrower to thebank or from the bank to the borrower.     

Firm dynamics and financial development

Using comprehensive firm-level datasets, this paper studies the impact of cross-country variation in financial market development on firms' financing choices and growth. In less financially developed economies, small firms grow faster and have lower leverage than large firms. As financial development improves, the growth difference between small and large firms shrinks, while the leverage difference rises. The paper then develops a quantitative model where financial frictions drive firm growth and debt financing through the availability of credit and default risk. The model explains the observed cross-country variations in firm size, leverage and growth in response to changes in financial frictions.     

Corporate Debt Value,Bond Covenants,and Optimal Capital Structure

This article examines corporate debt values and capital structure in a unified analytical framework. It derives closed-form results for the value of long-term risky debt and yield spreads, and for optimal capital structure, when firm asset value follows a diffusion process with constant volatility. Debt values and optimal leverage are explicitly linked to firm risk, taxes, bankruptcy costs, risk-free interest rates, payout rates, and bond covenants. The results elucidate the different behavior of junk bonds versus investment-grade bonds, and aspects of asset substitution, debt repurchase, and debt renegotiation.     

Credit risk dynamics in response to changes in the federal funds target: The implication for firm short-term debt

The recent credit crisis has raised a number of interesting questions regarding the role of the Federal Reserve Bank and the effectiveness of its expected and unexpected interventions in financial markets, especially during the crisis, given its mandate. This paper reviews and evaluates the impact of expected and unexpected changes in the federal funds rate target on credit risk premia. The paper's main innovation is the use of an ACH-VAR (autoregressive conditional hazard VAR) model to generate the Fed's expected and unexpected monetary policy shocks which are then used to determine the effects of a Federal Reserve policy change on counterparty credit risk and more importantly short-term firm debt financing. The findings answer a longstanding question sought by researchers on the effect of policy makers' announcements on firm debt financing. The results clearly show that the Federal Reserve influences short-term debt financing through the credit channel for both expansionary and contractionary monetary policies. In particular, we find that the growth in counterparty risk appears less responsive to anticipated responses in the Fed funds rate that fail to materialize than to an unanticipated increase in the federal funds rate. Finally, we also document that the results appear to validate the Feds interventions in financial markets to stem counterparty risk and to make liquidity more readily available to firms.