Sovereign debt and the London Club: A precommitment device for limiting punishment for default

In this paper, we examine the role that institutions may play in enabling banks to write contracts whereby sovereign debt is not forgiven ex post. Our model provides a rationale for the emergence of a centralized forum for debt renegotiation, such as the London Club, as well as for bank syndicates. These bank syndicates arise as part of a pre-commitment device rather than for risk sharing purposes. We propose a debt contract under which only involuntary default is forgiven ex post. Our main findings are that under this contract, debt forgiveness after voluntary (strategic) default is avoided. When voluntary default occurs, access to the credit market is denied only for a limited number of periods, rather than forever. In contrast to a voluntary default, involuntary default is forgiven immediately.     

How legal and institutional environments shape the private debt renegotiation process?

I investigate how legal and institutional conditions around loan origination influence a private debt renegotiation process. Using a large sample of 15,000 loans on the European credit market, I apply a sequential logit model to consider the renegotiation likelihood, the conditional probability of multiple renegotiation rounds or multiple amended terms, and the renegotiation outcomes conditional on specific loan amendments. I find that legal systems with stronger protection of creditors control rights have a positive influence on renegotiation likelihood and favorable outcomes on amendments to amount or maturity. Stronger legal protection reduces renegotiation likelihood when creditors face potential strategic default by shareholders. The legal and institutional environment has a significant effect on how the initial design of the financial contract impacts the renegotiation process.     

DEBT FORGIVENESS AND STOCK PRICE REACTION OF LENDING BANKS: THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM JAPAN

We provide a simple model for analyzing how debt forgiveness affects the stock price of a lending bank. Our model shows that although debt forgiveness increases shareholder wealth of a bank in healthy financial condition, it decreases shareholder wealth of a bank in unhealthy financial condition. We empirically investigate the announcement effect of debt forgiveness on bank stock prices in Japanese markets. On average, lending banks experience a significant negative announcement effect with respect to debt forgiveness. Consistent with the prediction of the model, we find a negative relation between the announcement effect and the net bad loan ratio as a proxy of the unhealthiness of the financial condition of the bank.     

Implications of Debt Renegotiation for Optimal Bank Policy and Firm Behavior

This paper analyzes the problems associated with the renegotiation of debt contracts involving a bank (the lender) and a firm (the borrower) when the latter is operated by a risk averse manager. Firms undertake risky projects with loan capital borrowed from the bank. When a firm cannot pay off a loan it is technically bankrupt. Both the borrower and the lender may however experience a Pareto-improvement in their positions by renegotiating the loan. By renegotiating the terms of the debt the financially distressed firm can avoid the stigmatization of bankruptcy and the bank can avoid the costs of seizing the borrower's assets. However, our main finding is that, from the bank's point of view, renegotiating as a policy of recovering loan payments may be inefficient in practice because of false bankruptcy claims and moral hazard problems associated with exposure of the borrowing firm to the risk of default. We present a solution to the false bankruptcy claim problem that involves a mixe d strategy between asset seizure by the bank and debt renegotiation.     

Conditional conservatism and the yield spread of corporate bond issues

Building upon recent research which indicates that debt markets rather than equity markets shape financial reporting, this study examines how conditionally conservative financial reporting relates to the yield spread of corporate bond issues. Our findings suggest that the debt contract efficiency/information costs view of conditional conservatism, documented in private debt contracts, does not generalize to public debt contracts. Instead, a debt contract renegotiation costs perspective seems to better capture the dynamics of the public debt markets, with conditionally conservative reporting being associated with higher yield spread of corporate bond issues. Additional subsample test results indicate that the association between conditional conservatism and bond yield spreads is more pronounced in non-investment grade bonds, for bond issuers with more financial distress, and for bonds that are issued before the passage of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act. This study fills a gap in the conservatism literature, which focuses primarily on equity or private bank loan markets with traditional debt contract efficiency/information costs view.     

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.     

Reputation, renegotiation, and the choice between bank loans and publicly traded debt

We model firms' choice between bank loans and publicly tradeddebt, allowing for debt renegotiation in the event of financialdistress. Entrepreneurs, with private information about theirprobability of financial distress, borrow from banks (multiperiodplayers) or issue bonds to implement projects. If a firm isin financial distress, lenders devote a certain amount of resources(unobservable to entrepreneurs) to evaluate whether to liquidatethe firm or to renegotiate its debt. We demonstrate that banks'desire to acquire a reputation for making the 'right' renegotiationversus liquidation decision provides them an endogenous incentiveto devote a larger amount of resources than bondholders towardsuch evaluations. In equilibrium, bank loans dominate bondsfrom the point of view of minimizing inefficient liquidation,.however, firms with a lower probability of financial distresschoose bonds over bank loans.     

Incomplete contracts,renegotiation, and the choice between bank loans and public debt issues

In a two-period model where an investment project is funded with standard debt, the probability distribution of final cash flow is determined, at the interim date, by an unverifiable state of nature together with a choice by the controlling party (entrepreneur or creditor). With a control allocation contingent on a noisy default signal, renegotiation may improve efficiency in two ways: (i) reduce excessive risk-taking – due to the entrepreneur's moral hazard – through debt forgiveness; (ii) avoid the costs of financial distress associated with excessive liquidation or underinvestment by debt-holders, by letting them receive an equity stake in the firm. Such efficiency gain is an advantage of bank loans over publicly traded debt, given that the former are more easily renegotiated than the latter. The difference between the two types of debt is increasing in the degree of contractual incompleteness (noise present in the default signal) and in the portion of project value accounted for by future discretionary investment options.     

The choice between informal and formal restructuring: The case of French banks facing distressed SMEs

This empirical paper investigates the paths leading to the resolution of financial distress for a sample of small and medium-sized French firms in default, focusing in particular on their decisions between bankruptcy and informal (out-of-court) renegotiations. The procedure is depicted as a sequential game in which stakeholders first decide whether to engage in an informal renegotiation. Second, conditional on opting for renegotiation, the debtor and its creditors may succeed or fail in reaching an agreement to restructure the firm’s capital structure. We test different hypotheses that capture (i) coordination and bargaining power issues, (ii) informational problems, (iii) firm characteristics, and (iv) loan characteristics. The empirical implementation is based on sequential LOGIT regressions. First, we find that the likelihood of informal renegotiations increases with loan size and the proportion of long-term debt. These two results support the argument that size matters when deciding whether to opt for informal renegotiation. Second, the probability of a successful renegotiation decreases when (i) the bank in charge of handling the process is the debtor’s “main” creditor and when (ii) the firm is badly rated and its management is considered faulty. Third, the estimations show that collateral plays a significant role in the first stage of the renegotiation process. However, it does not impact the likelihood of success in reaching a renegotiated agreement. Finally, some banks are clearly better than others at leading successful renegotiation processes.     

Sign reversal in the relationship between income smoothing and cost of debt

Despite the fact that income smoothing by managers is a pervasive phenomenon that has been widely researched, extant literature provides incomplete evidence on how smoothing is associated with cost of debt in general, and in the private loan market in particular. The institutional factors associated with private loan contracts, combined with the theoretical motivations for smoothing, make it unclear whether smoothing will be positively, negatively, or not associated with loan spread. Using both cross‐country and within‐country analyses on an international sample of private loans, we predict and provide evidence that income smoothing is associated with lower cost of debt when the threat of private benefits consumption by managers is low, but is associated with higher cost of debt when the threat of private benefits consumption by managers is high. We provide the first evidence in the literature that the garbling effect of smoothing can predictably dominate the signaling view of smoothing in debt contract design, and we identify private benefits consumption threat as the feature of the contracting environment that empirically reveals a sign reversal in the relationship between smoothing and cost of debt.     

Does the use of tax haven subsidiaries by U.S. multinational corporations affect the cost of bank loans?

This study examines whether the use of tax haven subsidiaries by U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs) is associated with the cost of bank loans. We find that more intensive tax haven subsidiary use by MNCs is positively associated with the cost of bank loans. In cross-sectional analyses, we identify channels through which the positive association between tax haven intensity and bank loan costs is more pronounced, such as a weak information environment, poor corporate governance, high CEO pay-for-performance and corporation-related wealth, and low managerial ability. We also find that intensive tax haven use is positively (negatively) associated with non-price loan contract terms, such as collateralization and financial covenants (loan maturity and general covenants). Our main result holds when public bonds are substituted for bank loans. Finally, additional analysis shows that MNCs with high levels of tax haven intensity are more likely to rely on bank loan financing than on raising debt from the bond market. Overall, this study adds to an emerging body of literature on corporate taxation and debt policy.     

Managerial Incentives and the Choice between Public and Bank Debt

I propose a simple model with complete and perfect information on the relation between managerial incentive compensation and choice between public and bank debt. The empirical analysis offers considerable support to the model's predictions. I find that managers whose compensation is tied to firm performance prefer bank to public debt. Further, I find a positive relation between cost of public debt and managerial incentive compensation and no relation between loan spreads and incentive compensation. Finally, I find that banks are more likely to include a collateral provision in the debt contract if the CEO's compensation is tied to firm performance.     

Resaleable debt and systemic risk

Many debt claims, such as bonds, are resaleable; others, such as repos, are not. There was a fivefold increase in repo borrowing before the 2008–2009 financial crisis. Why? Did banks’ dependence on non-resaleable debt precipitate the crisis? In this paper, we develop a model of bank lending with credit frictions. The key feature of the model is that debt claims are heterogenous in their resaleability. We find that decreasing credit market frictions leads to an increase in borrowing via non-resaleable debt. Such borrowing has a dark side: It causes credit chains to form, because, if a bank makes a loan via non-resaleable debt and needs liquidity, it cannot sell the loan but must borrow via a new contract. These credit chains are a source of systemic risk, as one bank’s default harms not only its creditors but also its creditors’ creditors. Overall, our model suggests that reducing credit market frictions may have an adverse effect on the financial system and even lead to the failures of financial institutions.     

The transformation of banking: Tying loan interest rates to borrowers' CDS spreads

We investigate how the introduction of market-based pricing, the practice of tying loan interest rates to credit default swaps, has affected bank financing. We find that market-based pricing is associated with lower interest rates, both at origination and during the life of the loan. Our results also indicate that banks simplify the covenant structure of market-based pricing loans, suggesting that the decline in the cost of bank debt is explained, at least in part, by a reduction in monitoring costs. Market-based pricing, therefore, besides reducing the cost of bank debt, may also have adverse consequences resulting from the decline in bank monitoring.     

Debt maturity dispersion and the cost of bank loans

This paper examines the relation between corporate debt maturity dispersion and the pricing and terms of bank loans. Analyzing a sample of U.S. bank loans from 2002 to 2016, we find that firms with a dispersed debt maturity structure pay a lower interest rate. The rate-reduction effect is significant only for firms without a credit rating. For these firms, spreading debt maturity dates also results in lower commitment fees, fewer covenant restrictions, and less collateral in their loan contracts. The impact of debt maturity dispersion on the pricing and structure of bank loans is stronger when borrowers have higher rollover risk or when the need for monitoring is greater. Our results suggest that dispersion in debt maturity structure mitigates the agency problem associated with shareholder–creditor conflicts by reducing rollover risk and alleviating the need for monitoring, which results in borrowers receiving more favorable terms in loan contracts.     

银行对企业经营的监督效应研究——基于控股股东掏空行为的视角

从控股股东掏空行为的视角,采用中国上市公司的贷款数据分析中国的商业银行对企业的监督作用。研究发现,银行对控股股东的掏空行为具有一定的监督作用,在银行贷款数量多、贷款期限长的公司中,控股股东的掏空行为明显减少。对不同所有制的企业,银行的监督作用存在异质性。目前,银行的监督作用主要体现在国有银行中,而国有银行能有效监督的对象仅限于地方政府和私人控制的企业,国有银行对中央企业的监督能力较弱。从事后监督来看,银行会对控股股东的掏空行为做出贷款政策的调整,对于控股股东掏空严重的企业,续新贷款的银行数量、续新贷款比例显著下降,而且贷款利率显著提高。     

Debt contract strictness and auditor specialization

The conflicts of interest among managers, shareholders and creditors resulting in agency costs, can be mitigated by restricting managers’ adverse behavior, through financial covenants to better align the various stakeholder interests. Thus, debt contract strictness represents an important aspect of agency costs between creditors, shareholders, and management that is not always captured by interest rates. The contract setting provides a unique opportunity to investigate how creditors may rely on auditors to alleviate information uncertainty stemming from reliance on management's financial reporting and thus alleviate the creditor's potential loss of invested capital. After controlling for borrower risks, loan characteristics, and audit factors, we show that auditor industry specialization is significantly associated with a reduction in the strictness of debt contracts, consistent with creditors viewing certain industry expert auditors as effective monitors against financial reporting manipulation aimed at the avoidance of debt covenant triggers that protect creditors against potential loss. Further, we find that the association between loan strictness and auditor specialization is attenuated by stronger corporate governance systems, external monitors, and prior lender relationships.     

地方政府债券置换对银行信贷及货币供给的影响

通过构建基于商业银行资产负债结构的地方债置换分析框架,研究表明,地方债置换将通过商业银行资产结构在贷款与债券之间的配置调整影响货币供给,它将使银行可贷资金增加,并导致贷款规模的变化,在贷款创造存款的信用放大机制下,引起货币供应量的变化,进而造成货币政策的扩张(收缩).贷款市场的供求弹性将决定地方债置换的扩张效应或收缩效应.在经济增长放缓、银行为弥补持有地方债收益下降、地方债纳入货币政策工具的抵押品和质押品范围的情况下,地方债置换具有货币政策扩张效应.为减少地方债对金融市场的冲击,央行需密切监测商业银行资金运用情况,提高货币政策操作的针对性,并加强同财政政策的协同配合.     

A time series/cross section analysis of the determinants of Australian trading bank loan/deposit interest margins: 1962–1981

A theoretical model of the determination of trading bank interest margins, based on the hedging theory of interest margin determination, is tested on time series cross-section data of Australian trading banks. Generally, the results are consistent with that theory. That is, there exists a stable non-linear relationship between Australian trading bank net loan/deposit interest margins and measures of market power, degree of absolute risk aversion, and to interest rate uncertainty. Furthermore, the shift from business sector to personal sector loan and deposit business is associated with increased bank interest margins.     

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。