Equity financing in a Myers–Majluf framework with private benefits of control

This paper generalizes the Myers and Majluf (1984) model by introducing an agency cost structure based on private benefits of control. This new model predicts that many corporate finance variables each have opposing effects on under- and overinvestment. Private benefits exacerbate overinvestment but, interestingly, a small amount of private benefits can enhance firm value by alleviating underinvestment. Likewise, an increase in insider ownership alleviates overinvestment but aggravates underinvestment. When private benefits are small, the adverse effect of insider ownership on underinvestment tends to dominate. When there are considerable private benefits, the incentive-alignment effect of insider ownership is pronounced. Additionally, this model reconciles existing equity financing theories on announcement effects. It helps resolve the puzzle that small-growth firms do not seem to have an asymmetric information disadvantage when they issue new equity.     

Multi-track financing

In today's uncertain economic environment, when seeking to finance a capital project, healthcare borrowers should adopt a multi-tracked funding strategy that permits them to change capital-funding routes quickly in response to changing circumstances. The multi-tracking process requires two stages prior to securing a commitment and beginning the closing process: due diligence and indication of interest. This process should present no material additional cost during these two stages, giving healthcare borrowers the flexibility to explore a variety of financing options.     

Debtor-in-possession financing

Several recent papers have documented the benefits of debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing in the restructuring of firms in Chapter 11. However, the view on benefits is not unanimous and some legal scholars have raised doubts about DIP financing's effects on debt-holders and the possibility of expropriative wealth transfers. In this paper we address this issue by analyzing both stock and bond price data for a comprehensive sample of DIP loans and find significant positive abnormal stock and bond returns at the announcement of DIP loans. Also, we do not find evidence of wealth transfers from junior to senior debt-holders. Further, we examine the DIP loan process in detail and we document important institutional features of DIP loans such as maturity, covenants, fees and interest charges. We find evidence of intense monitoring using covenants. We also find higher fees and charges associated with DIP loans. We argue that overall the results are consistent with the information processing role of financial intermediaries.     

金钥匙理财中心与农业银行个人理财服务——中国农业银行浙江省宁波分行个人理财工作室调研报告

国有商业银行改革正在循序渐进地推开。农业银行的股份制改革也已提上议事日程。农业银行的改革从形式上是实行股份制 ,从实质上是实现商业化。按照商业化的要求去运作 ,去经营 ,观念要创新、体制要突破、产品要优异 !这就需要一批具有现代银行经营理念 ,掌握现代银行运作技术 ,富有改革创新才能的银行经营管理人才。一流的人才 ,需要一流的培训。为农业银行培训一流的人才 ,是农业银行培训学院的神圣使命。带着这一崇高使命 ,我们武汉培训学院部分教师于二○○五年元月份对广东、浙江宁波等分行进行了深入调研 ,为农业银行总行二○○五年的员工培训做好了充分准备。在调研活动中 ,他们结合自己的学习心得和专业理论 ,并且联系农业银行的实际 ,写出了一批具有较高理论素养和实践意义的文章 ,我们在这里选发一部分 ,以飨读者。     

Institutional arrangements and debt financing

I find that institutional arrangements have an impact on the real economy by affecting firms’ choice between private and public debt and the subsequent financing costs. Using new debt issued by firms in 26 non-US countries, I find, after controlling for firm characteristics predicted by debt agency and information asymmetry theories, that the level of financial market development, the efficiency of bankruptcy procedure, the integrity and enforceability of laws, and the transparency of financial information have significant impacts not only on firms’ debt choice and yield to maturity in domestic debt market, but also their issuance choice in the international debt market.     

Structural change and financing constraints

In a multi-industry growth model, firms need external funds for productivity-enhancing R&D, and face financing constraints. The cost of research differs across industries, so financing constraints hinder industry productivity growth unevenly. Equilibrium industry dynamics map into a differences-in-differences regression specification where industry growth depends on the interaction between country financial development and industry R&D intensity. The paper provides a framework for interpreting several empirical results that rely on industry growth data in terms of R&D-induced technology transfer, and identifies a new channel for finance to encourage aggregate growth: the reallocation of resources towards sectors with rapidly expanding technological frontiers.     

投融资中充满悖论

投融资是复杂的过程,如果投资方和企业方跳出传统的哲学二元论,理解和掌握深刻揭示事物本质的三元论,则能够破解投融资中的许多悖论难题     

European integration and corporate financing

This paper explores the importance of supply of capital for corporate financing. To identify this relation, we examine the impact of two exogenous events, entry to the EU and the adoption of Euro, which caused shifts in equity and credit markets during European integration. Following membership to EU, which eased access to equity capital, firms increase equity financing. Firms increase debt financing after the adoption of Euro, which improved access to international debt capital. We control for globalization, ongoing developments in equity and credit channels, firm characteristics, and the moderating effects of the country of origin.     

Profit taxes and financing constraints

Without financing frictions, profit taxes reduce investment by their effect on the user cost of capital. With financing constraints, investment becomes sensitive to cash-flow. In this situation, even small taxes impose first order welfare losses, and ACE and cash-flow tax systems are no longer neutral. When banks become active and provide monitoring services in addition to finance, an ACE tax yields larger investment and welfare than an equal yield cash-flow tax.     

Understanding informal financing

This paper offers a framework to understand informal financing based on mechanisms to deal with asymmetric information and enforcement. We find that constructive informal financing such as trade credits and family borrowing that relies on information advantages or an altruistic relationship is associated with good firm performance. Underground financing such as money lenders who use violence for enforcement is not. Constructive informal financing is prevalent in regions where access to bank loans is extensive, while its role in supporting firm growth decreases with bank loan availability. International comparisons show that China is not an outlier but rather average in using informal financing.     

Social capital and entrepreneurial financing choice

This paper investigates the influence of social capital on young firms' financing arrangements. Using a sample of U.S. start-ups, I find that social capital, as captured by secular norms and social networks in the entrepreneur's county, increases access to outside financing and reduces reliance on owner equity to finance the new venture. Financing to entrepreneurs located in counties with greater social capital involves higher amounts of leverage in the form of outside debt. This finding persists in a difference-in-difference test that controls for unobservable geographic determinants of capital structure.     

Access to financing and firm growth

Why do some firms grow faster than others? Although various observed and unobserved aspects of firms have been suggested as potential drivers of firm heterogeneity, economists disagree sharply on the role of financial structure in influencing firm growth. In this paper, I use a sample of quoted and unquoted firms to show that the effect of financial structure on firm growth is statistically significant and quantitatively important. In the presence of external financing constraints, firms rely more on internal funds to finance growth, but the effect of internal financing on firm growth decreases with an increase in the firm’s access to an external bank credit facility. As the external financing constraint is alleviated, the firm relies less on internal funds and switches to external financing as the primary source of financing for its growth. This pattern of transition between internal and external financing is particularly pronounced in small unquoted firms (conditional on their survival). These results suggest a real effect of financial structure on growth via the channel of an external financing constraint.     

Partial credit guarantees and SMEs financing

Using data for the Italian Central Guarantee Fund for Small and Medium Enterprises, the paper analyses the effect of partial credit guarantees on firms’ financing. We show that neglecting heterogeneity in guarantee intensities, namely considering all firms as equally treated, leads to a mis-measurement of the additionality effect. Moreover, we document the existence of non-linear effects, suggesting that coverage ratios below a certain threshold are likely to be ineffective to lessen obstacles faced by firms when seeking external financing funds.     

Aggregate external financing and savings waves

US data display aggregate external financing and savings waves. Firms can allocate costly external finance to productive capital, or to liquid assets with low physical returns. If firms raise costly external finance and accumulate liquidity, either the cost of external finance is relatively low or the total return to liquidity accumulation, including its shadow value as future internal funds, is particularly high. We formalize this intuition by estimating a dynamic model of firms׳ financing and savings decisions, and use our model along with firm level data to construct an empirical estimate of the average cost of external finance from 1980 to 2014.     

Government financing decisions and asset returns

This paper presents an empirical investigation of the relation between government financing decisions and asset returns. In particular, the focus is on whether a substitution of debt financing for tax financing of a given level of expenditures is associated with an increase in interest rates. The paper brings a different perspective to empirical investigations of government fiscal policies by examining the response of asset prices in an efficient capital market to such policies rather than focusing on aggregate consumption behavior. The results are consistent with the idea that asset prices are unrelated to how the government finances its expenditures. The results, however, also indicate that the capital market is not indifferent with respect to the level of government expenditures as higher interest rates are associated with increases in government purchases.     

Development costs capitalization and debt financing

This study investigates debt market effects of research and development (R&D) costs capitalization, using a global sample of public bonds and private syndicated loans issued by public non‐financial firms. Firstly, we show that firms capitalize larger amounts of R&D in a year when they exhibit a propensity for issuing bonds, rather than borrowing funds privately from the syndicated loan market, in the subsequent year. Secondly, we provide evidence that capitalized R&D investments reduce the cost of debt. We infer that debt market participants are able to identify firms’ motives for R&D capitalization, as we find a reduction in the cost of debt only for those firms that do not show indications of employing R&D capitalization for earnings management reasons. Indeed, only for this sub‐sample of firms, the amount of capitalized R&D contributes positively to future earnings. We confirm that R&D capitalization is positively associated with audit fees and thus can be deemed to be a signaling device. Lastly, we find that it is the amount of R&D a firm is expected to capitalize and not the discretionary counterparts, which facilitates a firm's access to public debt markets, reduces bond and syndicated loan prices, and contributes to future benefits.     

非正规金融与中小企业融资

中小企业融资问题已成为一个世界性的难题,而这一问题在中国表现得尤为强烈.中小企业由于信息不对称问题,加之规模小、担保品少等因素,使得其在信贷市场上融资存在着严重的缺口,即通过正式金融,中小企业不能获得足够的资金,因此转向了非正式金融.由于非正式金融存在着信息优势,有效地解决了借贷双方的信息不对称现象,从而拓宽了中小企业的融资渠道.     

Investment-based financing constraints and debt renegotiation

We consider how equity holders’ bargaining power during financial distress influences the interactions between financing and investment decisions when the firm faces the upper limit of debt issuance. We obtain four results. First, weaker equity holders’ bargaining power is more likely that the firm is financially constrained. Second, the investment quantity is independent of equity holders’ bargaining power. Third, the constrained credit spreads are increasing with equity holders’ bargaining power, contrary to the unconstrained ones. Fourth, higher volatility and weaker equity holders’ bargaining power are likely that the firm prefers to issue debt with renegotiation, compared with debt without renegotiation.     

银行业改革与中国融资市场

本刊记者在采访中国人民大学财政金融政策研究中心副主任张杰教授时,张教授特别指出: 中国有自己的特色,仍然会是以银行作为金融中介的间接融资为主,而不会过多地像美国那样形成以资本市场的直接融资为主的金融体制.