Preemption,leverage, and financing constraints

This paper investigates the interactions between preemptive competition and leverage in a duopoly market. We investigate both a case in which the firms have optimal financial structures, and a case in which financing constraints require firms to finance their investments by debt. Our findings are that the second mover always leaves the duopoly market before the leader, although the leader may exit before the follower's entry. The leverage effects of debt financing can increase the value of a firm and accelerate investment, even in the presence of preemptive competition. Notably, financing constraints can delay preemptive investment and improve firm values in preemptive equilibrium. Indeed, the leader's high leverage due to financing constraints can lower the first-mover advantage and weaken preemptive competition. Especially with strong first-mover advantage, the financing constraint effects can dominate the leverage effects. These findings are almost consistent with the empirical evidence, which shows that high leverage leads to competitive disadvantage and mitigates product market competition.     

Debt enforcement,financial leverage,and product failures: Evidence from China and the United States

Building on capital structure and product market interactions, and the role of debt enforcement in leveraged firms' investments, we examine whether cross-country debt enforcement can produce different associations between financial leverage and product failures. Results show that different debt enforcement systems can generate opposite leverage effects. In countries with weak/nearly ineffective debt enforcement, financial leverage shows an incentive investment effect due to low default costs, and thus highly leveraged firms tend to invest more and are less likely to have product failures. Conversely, in countries with strict/effective debt enforcement, distressed companies tend to have an underinvestment effect and more product failures.     

Investor heterogeneity,market segmentation,leverage and the equity premium puzzle

Financial economists for the past two decades have attempted to explain why the equity premium is so high, now known as the equity premium puzzle (EPP). We model investor heterogeneity, market segmentation and optimal leverage, using the time separable standard power utility, market completeness and ignoring transaction costs to explain the EPP. We explain both the EPP and the related risk-free rate puzzle without resorting to preference modification. Furthermore, we show a unique interior equilibrium for the debt ratio, contrary to the work by F. Modigliani, M.H. Miller (The cost of capital, corporation finance and the theory of investment, American Economic Review 48 (1958) 261–297; Corporate income taxes and the cost of capital, American Economic Review 53 (1963), 433–443) and S.C. Myers (Presidential address: The capital structure puzzle, Journal of Finance 39 (1984), 575–592). Our simulations show the relevance of our models.     

Costly external financing, investment timing, and investment–cash flow sensitivity

This paper examines the effects of costly external financing on the optimal timing of a firm's investment. By altering the optimal investment timing, costly financing affects current investment and the sensitivity of investment to internal cash flow. Importantly, the relation between the cost of external funds and investment–cash flow sensitivity is non-monotonic. Investment–cash flow sensitivity is decreasing in the cost of external financing when it is relatively low and is increasing in the financing cost when it is high. Empirical tests examining investment–cash flow sensitivities within groups of firms classified by proxies for their costs of external funds provide evidence consistent with the model. The model and the empirical results complement recent studies by Cleary, Povel and Raith [Cleary, S., Povel, P. and Raith, M., 2007. The U-shaped investment curve: theory and evidence, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 42, 1–39.] and Almeida and Campello [Almeida, H. and Campello, M., in press, Financial constraints, asset tangibility and corporate investment, Review of Financial Studies.] that show a non-monotonic relation between firms' investment and the availability of internal funds.     

Product Market Threats and the Value of Corporate Cash Holdings

We construct a model to show that predatory strategies by a financially strong rival can cause a financially weak firm to underinvest. This threat intensifies when the two firms produce similar products and share similar future investment opportunities. We show that cash holdings become more valuable by providing liquidity to fund investment opportunities as they emerge, thereby mitigating the underinvestment problem. Empirical evidence supports these model predictions. The value of cash is significantly higher for firms facing higher predatory threats. The results are robust to various controls for financial constraints, corporate governance, risk factors, and industry‐level measures of product market competition. An identification strategy that exploits exogenous variation in financial constraints further corroborates the causal effect of predatory threats on the value of cash.     

CONVERTIBLE DEBT AND RISK‐SHIFTING INCENTIVES

I argue that convertible debt, in contrast to its perceived role, can produce shareholders’ risk‐shifting incentives. When a firm's capital structure includes convertible debt, every investment decision affects not only the distribution of the asset value but also the likelihood that the debt will be converted and thereby the distribution of the firm's leverage. This suggests that managers can engage in risk‐increasing projects if a higher asset risk generates a more favorable distribution of leverage. Empirical evidence using 30 years of data supports my argument.     

Capital structure dynamics and transitory debt

Firms deliberately but temporarily deviate from permanent leverage targets by issuing transitory debt to fund investment. Leverage targets conservatively embed the option to issue transitory debt, with the evolution of leverage reflecting the sequence of investment outlays. We estimate a dynamic capital structure model with these features and find that it replicates industry leverage very well, explains debt issuances/repayments better than extant tradeoff models, and accounts for the leverage changes accompanying investment “spikes.” It generates leverage ratios with slow average speeds of adjustment to target, which are dampened by intentional temporary movements away from target, not debt issuance costs.     

On the strategic role of high leverage in entry deterrence

This paper examines the strategic role of high levels of debt and bankruptcy threats in deterring entry into monopolistic markets. In the context of an infinite horizon entry game, we show that if a potential entrant has access to debt financing with limited liability, the unique sub-game perfect equilibrium involves the entrant successfully issuing a high level of debt, entering the market and being met with cooperation. If, in addition to the entrant, the incumbent also has access to debt with limited liability, it will be highly levered and will completely pre-empt any entry in equilibrium. Finally, if the incumbent faces a variety of potential entrants with differing abilities to capture market shares, its optimal capital structure will help pre-empt the entry of the tougher entrants, while allowing the weaker ones to share the market. The results of extreme leverage are also shown to hold in an alternative formulation analyzed by Kreps and Wilson (1982) and Milgrom and Roberts (1982), and thus are robust to model specifications. The empirical implications and possible application to high leverage industries are briefly discussed.     

Leverage,output effects,and the M-M theorems

This paper uses the Capital Asset Pricing Model to link the financial policy of the firm with the firm's real decisions including output, input mix, and investment. Whereas the M-M leverage theorems were derived for a given set of real decisions, this paper considers the impact of leverage on firm optimization when interest is tax-deductible. In general, leverage impacts upon factor proportions, capital stock, and output decisions. In the final proposition, the author demonstrates that the ‘cost of capital’ need not decline with leverage even in perfect capital markets and with default-free debt.     

Anticompetitive Financial Contracting: The Design of Financial Claims

This paper presents the first model where entry deterrence takes place through financial rather than product‐market channels. In existing models, a firm's choice of financial instruments deters entry by affecting product market behavior; here entry deterrence occurs by affecting the credit market behavior of investors towards entrant firms. We find that to deter entry, the claims held on incumbent firms should be sufficiently risky, that is, equity. This contrasts with the standard Brander and Lewis (1986) result that debt deters entry. This effect is more marked the less competitive the credit market is—so more credit market competition spurs more product market competition.     

我国居民杠杆率现状及影响因素研究

近年来,我国居民部门杠杆率的快速上升引起社会各界关注。本文使用货币信贷和城镇储户调查数据,对我国居民部门杠杆率和偿债能力现状进行了分析,并运用各省住户贷款数据计算各省的居民杠杆率,使用面板数据模型对居民杠杆率上升的原因进行了实证分析。结果表明,房价的快速上涨和住房销售的增长都对居民部门杠杆率的上升有显著正向影响,其中房价上涨的影响程度更大。此外,金融发展水平和老年人抚养比对居民杠杆率有正向影响,少年人抚养比对居民杠杆率有负向影响。     

我国居民杠杆率现状及影响因素研究

近年来,我国居民部门杠杆率的快速上升引起社会各界关注。本文使用货币信贷和城镇储户调查数据,对我国居民部门杠杆率和偿债能力现状进行了分析,并运用各省住户贷款数据计算各省的居民杠杆率,使用面板数据模型对居民杠杆率上升的原因进行了实证分析。结果表明,房价的快速上涨和住房销售的增长都对居民部门杠杆率的上升有显著正向影响,其中房价上涨的影响程度更大。此外,金融发展水平和老年人抚养比对居民杠杆率有正向影响,少年人抚养比对居民杠杆率有负向影响。     

Firm growth type and capital structure persistence

We find that growth type (identified by a two-way sort on firm initial market-to-book ratio and asset tangibility) can parsimoniously predict significantly dispersed and persistently distinct future leverage ratios. Growth type is persistent; growth-type-sorted cross-sections of corporate fundamental variables (such as tangible versus intangible investment style) are also meaningfully persistent. As economic and market conditions improve, low growth type firms are keener to issue new debt than equity, whereas high growth type firms are least likely to issue debt and keenest to issue equity. These findings demonstrate that firms rationally invest and seek financing in a manner compatible with their growth types. Consistent with a generalized Myers–Majluf framework, growth type compatibility enables distinct growth types and hence specifications of market imperfection or informational environments to persist. Growth type is apparently a fundamental factor for capital structure persistence.     

The strategic specialist and imperfect competition in a limit order market

The empirical literature suggests that the limit order book contains information that might be used by the specialist to his own advantage. I develop a model where there is a strategic specialist who competes against a limit order book and has information about supply. The presence of a strategic specialist in an imperfectly competitive limit order book market induces non-monotonicity of market indicators with respect to the variance of liquidation value. Moreover, the existence of private information about supply significantly affects market performance as it induces, among other effects, lower market liquidity. Finally, this model suggests another link between Kyle’s (1985, 1989) [Kyle, A., 1985. Continuous auctions and insider trading. Econometrica 53, 1315–1336, Kyle, A., 1989. Informed speculators with imperfect competition. Review of Economic Studies 56, 317–356] and Glosten and Milgrom’s (1985) [Glosten, L., Milgrom, P., 1985. Bid, ask and transaction prices in a specialist market with heterogeneously informed markets. Journal of Financial Economics 14, 71–100] models by allowing for strategic behaviour of the specialist.     

Capital structure,executive compensation,and investment efficiency

This paper examines how the similarity between the executive compensation leverage ratio and the firm leverage ratio affects the quality of the firm’s investment decisions. A larger leverage gap (i.e., a bigger difference between these two ratios) leads to more investment distortions. Managers with more debt-like compensation components tend to under-invest, whereas managers with larger equity-based compensation engage more in over-investment. Furthermore, investment distortion is likely to increase the equity (debt) value when compensation leverage is lower (higher) than firm leverage. These findings suggest that managers can deviate from an optimal investment policy to increase the value of their portfolio, and that a lower leverage gap can reduce agency costs.     

Is it the weather?

We show that results in the recent strand of the literature, which tries to explain stock returns by weather induced mood shifts of investors, might be data-driven inference. More specifically, we consider two recent studies [Kamstra, Mark J., Kramer, Lisa A., Levi, Maurice D., 2003a. Winter blues: A SAD stock market cycle. American Economic Review 93(1), 324–343; Cao, Melanie, Wei, Jason, 2005. Stock market returns: A note on temperature anomaly. Journal of Banking and Finance 29(6), 1559–1573] that claim that a seasonal anomaly in stock returns is caused by mood changes of investors due to lack of daylight and temperature variations, respectively. While we confirm earlier results in the literature that there is indeed a strong seasonal effect in stock returns in many countries: stock market returns tend to be significantly lower during summer and fall months than during winter and spring months as documented by Bouman and Jacobsen [Bouman, Sven, Jacobsen, Ben, 2002. The Halloween indicator, Sell in May and go away: Another puzzle. American Economic Review, 92(5), 1618–1635], there is little evidence in favor of a SAD or temperature explanation. In fact, we find that a simple winter/summer dummy best describes this seasonality. Our results suggest that without any further evidence the correlation between weather-related variables and stock returns might be spurious and the conclusion that weather affects stock returns through mood changes of investors is premature.     

Proactive Leverage Increases and The Value of Financial Flexibility

Traditional tradeoff models of corporate capital structure, although still featured prominently in finance textbooks and widely accepted by practitioners, have been criticized by financial economists for doing a poor job of explaining observed debt ratios. Moreover, the observed ratios are far less stable than what would be predicted by the standard tradeoff models. In a study published several years ago in the Review of Financial Studies, the authors of this article aimed to shed more light on the underlying forces governing capital structure decisions by analyzing a set of major changes in capital structure in which companies initiated large increases in leverage through substantial new borrowings. They then attempted to explain why these companies chose to increase leverage and how their capital structures changed during the years after the large debt issues. As summarized in this article, the authors' findings indicate, first of all, that the large debt financings were used primarily to fund major corporate investments—and not, for example, to make large distributions to shareholders. And the changes in leverage ratios that came after the debt offerings were driven far more by the evolution of the companies' realized cash flows and their investment opportunities than by deliberate or decisive attempts to rebalance their capital structures toward a stationary target. In fact, many of the companies chose to take on even more debt when faced with cash‐flow deficits, despite operating with leverage that was already well above any reasonable estimate of their estimated target leverage. At the same time, companies that generated financial surpluses used them to reduce debt, even when their leverage had fallen well below their estimated targets. Taken as a whole, the findings of the authors' study support the idea that unused debt capacity represents an important source of financial flexibility, and that preserving such flexibility—and making use of it when valuable investment opportunities materialize—may well be the critical missing link in connecting capital structure theory with observed corporate behavior.     

Hedging,financing, and investment decisions: Theory and empirical tests

In this paper we theoretically and empirically examine the interaction between hedging, financing, and investment decisions. A simple equilibrium model with costly financial distress suggests that as firms become more efficient at risky investments vis a vis low risk investments, they will borrow less, invest more in risky assets, and hedge more. The model also predicts a positive relationship between hedging and leverage – a result consistent with debt capacity arguments. We test the model empirically using a simultaneous equations framework to investigate the determinants of firm-level hedging, financing and investing decisions. The results strongly support the hypothesis that the hedging, financing and investment decisions are jointly determined. In addition, we find strong support for the central hypothesis that firms more efficient investing in risky technologies more aggressively hedge and use less debt financing in order to maximize their comparative advantage.     

‘Hot’ Debt Markets and Capital Structure

This paper examines the motives of debt issuance during hot‐debt market periods and its impact on capital structure over the period 1970–2006. We find that perceived capital market conditions as favourable, an indication of market timing, and adverse selection costs of equity (i.e., information asymmetry) are important frictions that lead certain firms to issue more debt in hot‐ than cold‐debt market periods. Using alternative hot‐debt market issuance measures and controlling for other effects, such as structural shifts in the debt market, industry, book‐to‐market, price‐to‐earnings, size, tax rates, debt market conditions and adjustment costs based on debt credit ratings, we find that firms with high adverse selection costs issue substantially more (less) debt when market conditions are perceived as hot (cold). Moreover, the results indicate that there is a persistent hot‐debt market effect on the capital structure of debt issuers; hot‐debt market issuing firms do not actively rebalance their leverage to stay within an optimal capital structure range.     

CEO's Inside Debt and Dynamics of Capital Structure

Debt‐type compensation (inside debt) exacerbates the divergence in risk preferences between the chief executive officer (CEO) and shareholders and, in turn, affects capital structure decisions. An excessively risk‐averse CEO tends to use less debt than the shareholders desire, reduce debt quickly when the firm is overlevered, but is reluctant to increase debt when the firm is underlevered. We find that higher CEO's inside debt ratio (i.e., inside debt as a percentage of total incentive compensation) is associated with lower firm leverage and faster (slower) leverage adjustments toward the shareholders’ desired level for overlevered (underlevered) firms. The CEO's inside debt ratio most conducive to capital structure rebalancing is around 10% of the firm's market debt ratio.