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.     

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.     

Stock Index‐linked Debt and Shareholder Value: Evidence from the Paris Bourse

French banks and non‐financial companies issue index‐linked debt whose value at maturity is indexed to the CAC 40 or to a basket of European indices. This paper examines stock announcement effects associated with these bonds on three dates: the date the issuer's General Assembly decides future capital needs, the publication in the journal of the COB (the stock market board), and the issue date. We find the issuance of index‐linked debt has significant positive announcement effects on the issue date, which we attribute to its market‐completion property. In order to examine further whether market completion is at play, we decompose the value of the bond at issue into its straight bond and option values. We determine that the bonds are overvalued again supporting market completion.     

Banks and sovereign risk: A granular view

We investigate the determinants of sovereign bond holdings of German banks and the implications of such holdings for bank risk. We use granular information on all German banks and all sovereign debt exposures in the years 2005–2013. As regards the determinants of sovereign bond holdings of banks, we find that these are larger for weakly capitalized banks, banks that are active on capital markets, and for large banks. Yet, only around two thirds of all German banks hold sovereign bonds. Macroeconomic fundamentals were significant drivers of sovereign bond holdings only after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. With the outbreak of the sovereign debt crisis, German banks reallocated their portfolios toward sovereigns with lower debt ratios and bonds with lower yields. With regard to the implications for bank risk, we find that low-risk government bonds decreased the risk of German banks, especially for savings and cooperative banks. Holdings of high-risk government bonds, in turn, increased the risk of commercial banks during the sovereign debt crisis.     

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.     

Bond indenture provisions and the risk of corporate debt

This paper examines the effect of alternative bond indenture provisions on the allocation of risk among the firm's claimants. The approach taken here differs from that of earlier studies in that risk allocation is examined while the firm's leverage (in market value terms) is held constant. In this context, four indenture provisions are examined: (1) the time to maturity, (2) the promised payment schedule, (3) financing restrictions and (4) priority rules. It is concluded that risk is transferred from stockholders to bondholders as the time to maturity and promised payment increase appropriately. Furthermore substitution of longer-term debt for an equal amount of shorter-term debt also increases the risk to bondholders while decreasing the risk to stockholders. The analysis shows that a coupon bond can be represented by a unique discount bond with the same risk and value. This permits the characterization of the effective maturity of a risky debt issue, a concept analogous to the stochastic duration of a default-free coupon bond. These results are shown to be independent of the means used to finance the debt issue. Finally, it is concluded that the relative risk associated with different bonds issued by the same firm cannot be determined by the structure of priority rules alone. It is also necessary to consider the timing of the promised payments compared to that of the other debt issues in the firm's capital structure.     

从我国分权化改革视角看地方发债权授予

我国地方政府进入高债务风险时代已是不争的事实,理论界对于是否可以通过授予地方政府发债权化解风险尚存争议。本文通过分析认为,授予地方政府发债权并不能促使地方政府在公共物品供给方面展开竞争,当前更合适的路径选择应该是在市场化改革的大方向内进行地方债务摸底与实质性的制度建设。     

推进城镇化:我国国债投资思路的新选择

随着政府积极财政政策的淡出,曾经为拉动经济增长发挥巨大作用的建设国债发行处于尴尬境地。因此,必须开拓新的国债投资领域,而推进小城镇向城市化转变将是国债投资的新领地。     

Safety Transformation and the Structure of the Financial System

This paper studies how a financial system that is organized to efficiently create safe assets responds to macroeconomic shocks. Financial intermediaries face a cost of bearing risk, so they choose the least risky portfolio that backs their issuance of riskless deposits: a diversified pool of nonfinancial firms' debt. Nonfinancial firms choose their capital structure to exploit the resulting segmentation between debt and equity markets. Increased safe asset demand yields larger and riskier intermediaries and more levered firms. Quantitative easing reduces the size and riskiness of intermediaries and can decrease firm leverage, despite reducing borrowing costs at the zero lower bound.     

To be or not to be all-equity for firms that eliminate long-term debt

Despite the advantages of debt, a significant number of firms that have an established leverage policy deliberately become all-equity. These firms eliminate a substantial amount of long-term debt as the average firm’s leverage ratio is approximately 30 percent at the year-end prior to debt elimination. Firm-level “shocks” such as CEO turnover and changes in credit ratings cannot explain the dramatic recapitalization decision. Consistent with the tradeoff theory, firms that eliminate debt have lower benefits (less tax shield benefits, agency costs) and higher costs (probability of financial distress, access to capital markets, etc.) of leverage in the three prior years compared to a matched sample. We also find that the factors influencing the decision to eliminate all debt is different from those to significantly reduce leverage or to have very low debt levels. Firms primarily finance the approximately $70 million of average long-term debt eliminated using proceeds from sales of relatively unproductive assets and from equity issues. Interestingly, over half of these firms issue significant amount of new debt within three years of becoming all-equity. Firms with lower liquidity and non-debt tax shields, higher potential overinvestment agency costs, and those that issue equity at the debt elimination year are more likely to relever quickly.     

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。     

Financial Intermediaries and Liquidity Creation

Trading losses associated with information asymmetries can be mitigated by designing securities which split the cash flows of underlying assets. These securities, which can arise endogenously, have values that do not depend on the information known only to informed agents. Bank debt (deposits) is an example of this type of liquid security which protect relatively uninformed agents, and we provide a rationale for deposit insurance in this content. High-grade corporate debt and government bonds are other examples, implying that a money market mutual fund-based payments system may be an alternative to one based on insured bank deposits.     

Earnings Management Surrounding New Debt Issues

We examine whether firms manage earnings before issuing bonds to achieve a lower cost of borrowing. We find significant income‐increasing earnings management prior to bond offerings. We also find that firms that manage earnings upward issue debt at a lower cost, after controlling for various bond issuer and issue characteristics. Our results are consistent with studies that report earnings management around equity issuance. The results indicate that, like equity holders, bondholders fail to see through the inflated earnings numbers in pricing new debt.     

The zero-leverage phenomenon: A bivariate probit with partial observability approach

The empirical literature on zero leverage investigates why some firms are debt-free using standard logit and probit specifications. However, such models are not suitable to provide a direct answer to the main research question that arises in this context: is zero leverage a financial decision of the firm or an imposition raised by creditors? This paper examines the factors that affect the demand for debt and the supply of debt using bivariate probit models with partial observability in the sense of Poirier (1980), providing empirical evidence on the zero-leverage phenomenon for European listed firms during the period 2001-2016. We find that some variables influence in opposite directions debt demand and supply, or affect significantly only of them. In particular, firms’ profitability affects negatively debt demand but positively debt supply; asset tangibility increases the willingness of creditors to grant debt but does not influence debt demand; and the recent European crises reduced the propensity of firms to resort to debt but did not affect debt supply. We also find that firms in countries with common law systems, market-based financial systems and stronger protection to investors’ and creditors’ rights are more prone to have zero leverage due to both demand and supply effects.     

The demand effect of yield-chasing retail investors: Evidence from the Chinese enterprise bond market

Enterprise bonds with higher demand of retail investors are traded at significantly higher prices in the exchange market than the same bonds traded by institutional investors in the interbank market in China. The price difference is higher for bonds with higher yield to maturity, lower supply, and higher demand exposure to retail investors. Our results suggest that risky bonds can be priced significantly higher due to the demand of yield-chasing investors and a sudden negative demand shock can generate a sharp decrease in bond values. The demand and supply effects are stronger for bonds with higher duration due to the limited risk-sharing capacity of risk-averse arbitrageurs.     

RISKY DEBT MATURITY CHOICE IN A SEQUENTIAL GAME EQUILIBRIUM

In this paper the choice of risky debt maturity structure is analyzed in a sequential game framework. The focus is on the set of viable equilibria when there are no transaction costs associated with the choice of debt maturity structure. It is shown that when changes in firm value are independent over time, both short- and long-term debt pooling are Nash sequential equilibrium outcomes. However, only the short-term debt pooling outcome satisfies the universal divinity refinement. Relaxing the assumption of independent changes in firm value, it is demonstrated that a separating equilibrium in which higher-quality firms issue short-term debt and low-quality firms issue long-term debt may exist. Furthermore, conditions exist under which long-term debt pooling is the universally divine outcome.     

Short‐selling pressure and last‐resort debt finance: evidence from 144A high‐yield risk‐adjusted debt

This study examines why non‐financial publicly traded firms knowingly issue wealth destroying Rule 144A debt, which is associated with a negative announcement return and a higher yield. We provide a plausible ‘demand‐side’ explanation (i.e. last‐resort debt financing) for the motivation for issuing such debt. We also provide evidence as to what drives this negative reaction. Our findings suggest that the negative market impact is mainly driven by short‐selling pressure from convertible bond arbitrageurs.     

地方政府隐性债务与城投债定价

由于1994年《预算法》限制了中国地方政府凭借自身信用发行政府债券的能力,地方政府通过设立融资平台的方式发行了大量城投债券。虽然城投债被普遍认为是含有政府隐性担保的,但隐性担保主体认定尚未有共识。本文通过加总地方政府下属融资平台有息债务总额的方法,构建地方政府隐性债务负担率指标,并通过分析地方政府隐性债务负担率对城投债一二级市场信用利差的影响,进一步探索市场对城投债隐性担保责任主体的认定。研究发现,政府隐性债务负担率高的地方城投债信用利差偏高,并且这种影响随政策以及宏观形势而变化。自滇公路违约函事件后,投资者在城投债定价中开始普遍关注地方政府隐性债务负担率的信息;而在43号文明确了地方政府债务置换措施后,省级政府的隐性债务负担率开始成为城投债定价的重要影响因素。这说明投资者认可的地方隐性担保的责任主体是随时间变动的。     

VALUATION OF PRIMARY ISSUE CONVERTIBLE BONDS

Little empirical evidence is available on the nature of the trade-offs between the debt- and equity-like components of convertible bonds. Such information would be useful to firms considering the issuance of convertible bonds. Furthermore, complete understanding of the leverage implications of convertible bond issuance depends on the market's view of the proportions of the implicit debt/equity mix. The current study develops a two-equation model that estimates the relative contributions made to the value of primary issue convertible bonds by the debt and implicit warrant components. The model's distinct approach affords an opportunity to evaluate the empirical relationship between the value of the implicit warrant and the theoretical determinants of that value by isolating the individual components of the convertible bond's value.     

Efficient investment and financial intermediation

Insider trading causes uninformed agents to reduce their investments in assets that are most susceptible to it. This problem may be mitigated by forming a financial intermediary that issues securities with different sensitivity to inside information. In particular, the uninformed agents desire the intermediary's demand debt while the informed agents choose its equity. By separating the uninformed agents' financial payoffs from the intermediary's investment decisions, the intermediary can pursue more efficient investments and achieve allocations that are superior to those of the market.