A Gap‐Filling Theory of Corporate Debt Maturity Choice

We argue that time variation in the maturity of corporate debt arises because firms behave as macro liquidity providers, absorbing the supply shocks associated with changes in the maturity structure of government debt. We document that when the government funds itself with more short‐term debt, firms fill the resulting gap by issuing more long‐term debt, and vice versa. This type of liquidity provision is undertaken more aggressively: (1) when the ratio of government debt to total debt is higher and (2) by firms with stronger balance sheets. Our theory sheds new light on market timing phenomena in corporate finance more generally.     

On the Relative Pricing of Long‐Maturity Index Options and Collateralized Debt Obligations

We investigate a structural model of market and firm‐level dynamics in order to jointly price long‐dated S&P 500 index options and CDO tranches of corporate debt. We identify market dynamics from index option prices and idiosyncratic dynamics from the term structure of credit spreads. We find that all tranches can be well priced out‐of‐sample before the crisis. During the crisis, however, our model can capture senior tranche prices only if we allow for the possibility of a catastrophic jump. Thus, senior tranches are nonredundant assets that provide a unique window into the pricing of catastrophic risk.     

A Theory of Debt Maturity: The Long and Short of Debt Overhang

Debt maturity influences debt overhang, the reduced incentive for highly levered borrowers to make real investments because some value accrues to debt. Reducing maturity can increase or decrease overhang even when shorter term debt's value depends less on firm value. Future overhang is more volatile for shorter term debt, making future investment incentives volatile and influencing immediate investment incentives. With immediate investment, shorter term debt typically imposes lower overhang; longer term debt can impose less if asset volatility is higher in bad times. For future investments, reduced correlation between assets‐in‐place and investment opportunities increases the shorter term debt overhang.     

债务期限结构理论综述

企业的债务期限结构与企业价值是密切相关的。为此 ,一些经济学家对企业的债务期限结构进行了研究。本文在阅读这些文献的基础上 ,将债务期限结构理论划分为基于契约成本的理论、基于信息不对称的理论、基于税收的理论和基于期限匹配的理论四种 ,并分别对它们进行了概述     

公司债务期限结构问题研究综述

本文对国内外公司债务期限结构间题的理论和经验研究进行了全面、系统的回顾，包括两方面内容：一是公司债务期限结构与公司价值之间的关系，二是公司债务期限结构的影响因素。本文评价了现有文献存在的问题和不足之处，为中国上市公司债务期限结构问题研究提供了依据和方向。     

Trade-off Model of Debt Maturity Structure

In this paper, we suggest the trade-off model to explain the choice of debt maturity. This model is based on balancing between risk and reward of using shorter-term loans. Shorter-term loans have cost advantage over, but incur higher refinancing and interest rate risk than longer-term loans. Using the Compustat data, we show that the principal components of financial attributes are financial flexibility and financial strength. Therefore, only firms with greater financial flexibility and financial strength can use proportionately more short-term loans. We also document that financially strong firms take advantage of lower interest rates of short-term debt. They use proportionately more short-term loans when the term premium is high. The results of our study also provide evidence supporting the agency cost hypothesis, which is strongly supported by current literature.     

债务期限结构和区域因素——来自中国上市公司的经验证据

本文采用参数和非参数检验方法经验检查中国上市公司注册地所在区域因素与公司债务期限结构之间关系。研究发现：（1）不同区域之间的债务期限结构存在系统性差异：（2）区域因素能解释公司债务期限结构3％左右的变异；（3）中部地区的债务期限显著高于东部、西部地区的债务期限；（4）市场化程度高、经济发达的地区具有相对低的债务期限。     

The Maturity Structure of Corporate Debt

We provide an empirical examination of the determinants of corporate debt maturity. Our evidence offers strong support for the contracting-cost hypothesis. Firms that have few growth options, are large, or are regulated have more long-term debt in their capital structure. We find little evidence that firms use the maturity structure of their debt to signal information to the market. The evidence is consistent, however, with the hypothesis that firms with larger information asymmetries issue more short-term debt. We find no evidence that taxes affect debt maturity.     

Debt Maturity Structure and Firm Investment

This study shows that the maturity structure of a firm's debt has a significant impact on its investment decisions. We show, after controlling for the effect of the overall level of leverage, that a higher percentage of long-term debt in total debt significantly reduces investment for firms with high growth opportunities. In contrast, the correlation between debt maturity and investment is not significant for firms with low growth opportunities. The results are strong at the firm level and at the business segment level. These results hold even after controlling for the endogeneity problem inherent in the relationship between total leverage, the maturity composition of leverage, and investment.     

Asymmetric Information and Risky Debt Maturity Choice

When capital market investors and firm insiders possess the same information about a company's prospects, its liabilities will be priced in a way that makes the firm indifferent to the composition of its financial liabilities (at least under certain, well-known circumstances). However, if firm insiders are systematically better informed than outside investors, they will choose to issue those types of securities that the market appears to overvalue most. Knowing this, rational investors will try to infer the insiders' information from the firm's financial structure. This paper evaluates the extent to which a firm's choice of risky debt maturity can signal insiders' information about firm quality. If financial market transactions are costless, a firm's financial structure cannot provide a valid signal. With positive transaction costs, however, high-quality firms can sometimes effectively signal their true quality to the market. The existence of a signalling equilibrium is shown to depend on the (exogenous) distribution of firms' quality and the magnitude of underwriting costs for corporate debt.     

Pre‐Issuance Hedging of Fixed‐Rate Debt

This article analyzes several corporate hedging strategies to manage interest rate risk on fixed‐rate debt prior to issuance. The authors start by considering these strategies using a highly stylized model: a binomial forward interest rate tree that, while simple in design, illustrates derivative pricing methodologies that are used in practice. Under a given rate volatility assumption, they demonstrate expected outcomes when entering a forward bond contract, a forward‐starting pay‐fixed interest swap, and a purchased option on that swap, as well as the “default” alternative of doing nothing. In principle, the decision of whether or not to hedge, as well as how to do so, depends on management's view of future interest rate volatility and degree of comfort with possible outcomes. The authors then assess the pros and cons of hedging strategies, with considerable emphasis on practical considerations. For example, while their theoretical model would allow an issuer to “lock” a specific debt issuance, in practice one can hedge only “benchmark” interest rate risk. The authors describe the use of both Treasury locks and forward‐starting swaps to address unexpected benchmark yield changes, and discuss how factors such as the time to issuance affect an issuer's choice of instrument. For instance, Treasury locks are typically used when the time to issuance is relatively short, while interest rate swaps are more common for longer times to issuance. The article also discusses circumstances in which a “do nothing” strategy may be preferable to other alternatives, as well as the disadvantages of issuing in advance. Finally, the authors describe the impact of financial accounting on different hedge strategies.     

The Determinants of Debt Maturity at Issuance: A System-Based Model

We examine the determinants of corporate debt maturity while taking into account the interdependent relation between maturity and leverage. We do this by estimating a simultaneous-equations model on debt maturity and leverage for a sample of bond-issuing firms. To compare with previous studies, we also estimate a single-equation model on debt maturity using OLS. We define debt maturity as either the maturity of bonds at issuance (incremental approach), or the percentage of a firm's total debt that matures in more than three years (balance-sheet approach). Corroborating the findings of many previous studies, our single-equation OLS results support the underinvestment hypothesis purporting that firms with greater growth opportunities have shorter-term debt. However, under the simultaneous-equations model, the negative relation between a firm's debt maturity and its growth opportunities ceases to hold. Instead, it is the leverage decision that is influenced by growth opportunities. This suggests that existing models may overestimate the effect of growth opportunities on debt maturity.     

忧债毋过度

央行日前刚刚公布的《2010中国区域金融运行报告》介绍了其2008年以来对全国各地区政府融资平台贷款情况的专项调查结果。央行表示,目前地方政府融资平台贷款清理规范工作正有序推进。但总的来说,我们不要对地方政府性债务担忧过度。     

A Simple Approach to Valuing Risky Fixed and Floating Rate Debt

We develop a simple approach to valuing risky corporate debt that incorporates both default and interest rate risk. We use this approach to derive simple closed-form valuation expressions for fixed and floating rate debt. The model provides a number of interesting new insights about pricing and hedging corporate debt securities. For example, we find that the correlation between default risk and the interest rate has a significant effect on the properties of the credit spread. Using Moody's corporate bond yield data, we find that credit spreads are negatively related to interest rates and that durations of risky bonds depend on the correlation with interest rates. This empirical evidence is consistent with the implications of the valuation model.     

宁夏控债“高法”

据称,上海闵行区公共预算改革之路能不断前行,在于改革的主推者为闵行区区委书记孙潮。     

Real Asset Valuation: A Back‐to‐basics Approach

Different valuation methods can lead to different corporate investment decisions, and the conventional “static, single discount rate” DCF approach in particular is biased against many of the kinds of decisions that corporate managers tend to view as “strategic.” Reducing the bias from valuations involves two main tasks: treating risk in a way that is consistent with observed market pricing, and accounting for the ability of companies to make decisions “dynamically” over time. The authors propose two separate tools, market‐based valuation and complete decision tree analysis, for accomplishing these two improvements in valuation. The authors also suggest working with the full distribution of future cash flows, one possible realization at a time, rather than working with the aggregate measure of expected cash flow. From a technical perspective, it is necessary to work with the full distribution to value real options properly. Valuing the cash flows one realization at a time also leads to a much better understanding of the interaction between economy‐level, systematic risks and local asset‐level, technical risks. Just as important, the proposed approaches support an effective division of labor between local asset managers, who are better positioned to model technical considerations and other asset specifics, and the central finance staff, who can ensure the consistent treatment of economy‐wide risk and to create the rules of engagement for evaluating opportunities. After presenting an overview of both the valuation and the organizational issues, the authors present a case involving a corporate investment in carbon capture and storage that illustrates both the application of the proposed methods and the various sources of bias in the typical DCF analysis.     

政府债务与经济增长影响效应研究文献述评

本文通过对相关文献的系统性梳理分析,总结政府债务对经济增长的影响效应和作用机制:低水平政府债务促进经济增长,高水平债务抑制经济增长,政府债务规模与经济增长整体呈现倒U型关系;政府债务会通过社会投资、资本配置效率、金融风险、利率税收扭曲、财政政策能力和全要素生产率影响国民经济增长.根据我国政府债务的现状和发展趋势,本文提出政策建议:第一,完善各级政府债务发行审查制度;第二,合理规划政府债务资金用途;第三,优化政府性债券发行定价和评级体系,推动债券市场化改革.     

万亿政府性债务隐秘

江湖有云:出来混,迟早要还的。地方政府据称10万亿的巨额债务,怎么解决?潜在的欠债风险,将给最大债权人的银行带了怎样的冲击?有人列出了解决菜单:成立资产管理公司、资产证券化、发行市政债