Financial crises,debt overhang,and firm growth in transition economies

ABSTRACT

We examine the effects of the global financial crisis of 2008 and the European debt crisis of 2011 on the relationship between capital structure, investments, and performance for Eastern European companies. While the existing literature documents how firms’ investments are sensitive to the availability of internal funds and to debt holdings, we further investigate whether this investment sensitivity also translates in different levels of performance, and document that capital structure indeed has both a direct and an indirect effect, mediated by the capital expenditure channel. We show that firms with higher financial flexibility experience higher investments and returns on capital. Over-levered firms instead suffer from a debt overhang condition, forcing them to curb investments, and consequently experiencing lower performance. Overall, we provide evidence on the importance of capital structure and financial flexibility on investments and performance, showing the real consequences of the debt overhang condition on firm value creation. Firms should therefore aim at maintaining adequate financial flexibility in order to be able to pursue future profitable investment opportunities, and avoid the under-investment problem arising from a debt overhang situation.     

如何有效削减政府债务：保增长、调结构与稳金融

本文基于41个国家2001-2011年的动态面板数据,采用系统GMM估计研究了经济增长、产业结构升级和金融稳定对政府债务的影响。实证结果表明：经济增长和产业结构升级均有助于政府债务削减,且产业结构升级的作用要大于经济增长;与此同时,金融波动不仅对政府债务削减不利,还会通过边际效应削弱经济增长和产业结构升级在政府债务削减中的积极作用。上述结论意味着,在实践中,为有效削减政府债务,必须在确保金融稳定的前提下,坚持“保增长”和“调结构”双措并举,特别是充分发挥产业结构调整的积极作用,实现金融稳定和结构优化的经济增长。     

政治关联、财务年报恶意补丁与债务融资契约——基于民营上市公司实际控制人政治身份的实证研究

笔者采用2003年～2008年中国民营上市公司为样本,实证分析了实际控制人政治身份、财务年报恶意补丁出现几率及对债务融资契约的影响,发现上市公司实际控制人具备越高级别的政治身份,则上市公司发布恶意财务年报补丁的现象越少;上市公司发布了恶意财务年报补丁,则下年贷款规模明显下降,但是上市公司实际控制人的政治身份对上述负面影响有明显减弱,说明上市公司实际控制人具有的政治关联增强了上市公司出于维护潜在竞争优势的自我约束治理,从而增强了债务诚信,促进了债务契约签订.     

金融稳定性与经济增长的机制分析——基于新兴市场国家和发达国家的两组数据

文章通过比较新兴市场国家和发达国家1994-2008年间金融稳定性对经济增长的作用机制发现,对于新兴市场国家而言,外债占GNP的比重和国际储备与外债比例的上升不利于金融稳定状态的保持,导致经济增长率下降,但总储蓄占GDP比例的上升和贸易额占GDP比重的提高会促进金融稳定,带动经济增长;而对于发达国家而言,海外证券投资与债券投资的增加以及实际利率的上升会维护金融稳定性,促进经济增长。由于一国金融稳定还受国际宏观因素的影响,因此国际金融体系的重建是保证各成员国金融稳定的重要内容。     

关于金融危机时期金融自由化的反思

美国金融危机在全世界范围引发了对金融领域发展尤其是20世纪下半叶以来的金融自由化的重新思考。在后危机时期,对金融自由化的反思仍显重要。采用研究金融自由化影响的标准化模型,加入主权债务风险等因素进行修正,进而获得启示,并对我国金融领域发展提出建议。     

金融发展、债务治理与公司价值——来自中国上市公司的经验证据

文章运用新制度经济学的基本理论,以我国沪深两市A股上市公司2000-2006年的数据为样本,实证分析了金融发展促进经济增长的微观作用机制.研究发现,若债务比例增加1%,金融发展水平高的地区与低的地区相比,公司市场价值平均多提高[作者单位].54%,并且,债务融资与公司价值的正相关关系只在金融发展水平高的地区才存在.这表明,金融发展水平对债务治理作用的发挥有重要影响,公司所处地区的金融发展程度越高,债务治理的作用越强,越有利于提高公司的价值.     

Why Crisis Continue?——The Endogenous Reason of Financial Crisis and Evolution to the Debt Crisis and the Enlightenment

当前欧债危机越演越烈,需要重新思考金融危机爆发并且演化为主权债务危机的内生性根源.此次金融危机中,资本主义社会的基本矛盾是危机发生的制度性根源.这一矛盾外化为“相对过剩”.经济机制层面,新自由主义影响下的自由市场经济体制放大了市场经济固有的缺陷,为危机的爆发积累了机制性原因.微观市场层面,缺乏金融监管、不当的房地产和货币政策则是诱发危机的直接原因.高赤字和高负债的背景下,一些国内经济和社会矛盾突出的国家发生主权债务危机是金融危机深化的必然结果.处理好自由市场经济和规制市场经济、金融创新和金融监管、实体经济和虚拟经济的关系以及地方债务问题是此次金融和债务危机给我国的最大启示.     

Is debt conservatism the solution to financial constraints? An empirical analysis of Japanese firms

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates why firms choose the conservative financing strategy known as non-positive net debt policy, which is a more recent prevalent trend among Japanese firms. The analysis reveals that Japanese firms are more likely to be financially conservative if they are smaller, older and more profitable and have fewer growth opportunities and tangibility. The survival analysis further investigates the duration of conservative debt policy and ordinary debt policy. The evidence shows that firms adopt/abandon the conservative policy with different motivations and preferences over debt conservatism. In particular, we argue that the more financially constrained firms abandon the conservative debt policy sooner than their counterparts, while less financially constrained firms abandon the ordinary (less conservative) debt policy sooner than their counterparts. The results suggest that a firm uses a conservative debt policy in terms of net leverage as a temporary buffer to mitigate financial constraints.     

The impact of housing market disturbances on the US financial system: a pre-crisis analysis

A common critique of the Federal Reserve over the past crisis is that it should have better anticipated the impact of the run-up in home mortgage debt and the subsequent housing market crash on the financial system. As a result, the Federal Reserve should have moved much more quickly to shore up financial markets. Our article tests the hypothesis that the impact of the housing market crash on the financial system could have been anticipated. Using a VAR model along with impulse response functions and variance decompositions, we examine the link between housing market mortgage debt shocks and the financial intermediaries’ credit market behaviour. We find important connections between key macroeconomic variables and the credit behaviour of these financial institutions. However, using the pre-crisis data, we find that housing market debt shocks fail to have an impact on the credit markets accessed by these firms. These results support the notion that the impact of this crisis on the financial system could not have been anticipated given the information available at the time.     

What causes household debt to increase in South Africa?

The 2007–2008 US subprime mortgage crisis evolved into a financial crisis that negatively affected many economies in the world and was afterwards widely referred to as the global financial crisis. Since the beginning of this financial crisis of 2008–2009, South Africa experienced a significant increase in its household debt to income ratio. In the main, this paper investigates the prominent factors contributing to the rise in the level of household debt in South Africa. Specifically, we construct a model for South African household debt through the application of a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). We employ quarterly time series data throughout the timeline 1985 Q1 to 2012 Q1 and all the econometric tests are analyzed using the statistical software package EViews 7. Our results confirmed the existence of a long run cointegrating relationship between household debt and other macroeconomic determinants. Increasing household debt was found to be significantly affected by positive changes in consumer price index, gross domestic product and household consumption. Also, house prices and household savings were found to positively contribute to a rise in household debt but this relationship was found to be statistically insignificant. Alternatively, household borrowing was found to be significantly and insignificantly affected by negative changes in income and prime rate, respectively. Ultimately, the existence of a long run cointegrated relationship enabled us to build an error correction model for household debt which will facilitate future forecasting.     

政府干预、金融业发展和企业债务期限结构——基于我国民营上市公司的研究

本文以我国沪市A股民营上市公司为研究样本,利用其2001—2005年的面板数据,用SPSS13.0统计分析软件检验了各地区政府干预和金融业发展呈现出来的差异对公司债务期限结构的影响。实证研究结果表明:民营上市公司的债务期限结构与企业所在地的政府干预程度正相关,与当地金融业发展水平负相关。     

论企业可持续发展能力的财务杠杆政策利用

财务杠杆利用政策，是影响企业可持续发展能力的重要因素。本文论述了维持企业可持续发展能力的财务杠杆政策的类型及选择的约束因素，提出了企业应根据环境的影响确定合理的负债率水平、在增加财务的灵活性和财务杠杆利用之间进行平衡、增强企业财务杠杆利用水平的调整能力、财务杠杆水平的利用必须与公司预计实现的现金净流量相匹配等维持企业持续发展能力的财务杠杆的利用措施。     

产品市场竞争与财务保守行为——以燕京啤酒为例的分析

企业财务保守行为近年来在资本结构研究中颇受关注。本文构造了一个两阶段模型 ,考察当企业必须加大投资的条件下 ,产品市场未来竞争程度与企业当前债务规模的关系。模型表明 ,当企业预期未来竞争程度越激烈 ,当前选择的债务规模也越低 ,从而产生财务保守行为。本文对燕京啤酒财务保守行为进行了分析 ,证实了本文的模型。     

Effects of asset purchases and financial stability measures on term premia in the euro area

We study the effects of the announcements of ECB asset purchases and of financial stability measures in the euro area in the wake of the global financial crisis and the euro area sovereign debt crisis on 10-year government bond term premia in 11 euro area countries. We find that the term premia of euro area countries with higher sovereign risk, as measured by sovereign CDS spreads, decreased more in response to the announcements of asset purchases and financial stability measures. Term premia of countries with lowest sovereign risk either increased as in Germany, or were not significantly affected or fell slightly, as in the Netherlands and Finland.     

Taxes,risk taking,and financial stability

After the global financial crisis, the use of taxes to enhance financial stability received new attention. This paper analyzes the corrective role of taxes in banking and compares two instruments, namely, an allowance for corporate equity (ACE), which mitigates the debt bias in corporate taxation, and a Pigovian tax on bank debt (bank levy). We emphasize financial stability gains driven by lower bank asset risk and develop a principal-agent model, in which risk taking depends on the bank's capital structure and, by extension, on the tax treatment of debt and equity. We find that (i) the ACE unambiguously reduces risk taking, (ii) bank levies reduce risk taking if they are independent of bank performance but may be counterproductive otherwise, and (iii) taxes are especially effective if regulatory capital requirements are constrained to low levels.     

Imperfect competition in financial markets and capital structure

We consider a model of corporate finance with imperfectly competitive financial intermediaries. Firms can finance projects either via debt or via equity. Because of asymmetric information about firms’ growth opportunities, equity financing involves a dilution cost. Nevertheless, equity emerges in equilibrium whenever financial intermediaries have sufficient market power. In the latter case, best firms issue debt while the less profitable firms are equity-financed. We also show that strategic interaction between oligopolistic intermediaries results in multiple equilibria. If one intermediary chooses to buy more debt, the price of debt decreases, so the best equity-issuing firms switch from equity to debt financing. This in turn decreases average quality of equity-financed pool, so other intermediaries also shift towards more debt.     

Inflation and public debt reversals in advanced economies

This paper quantitatively assesses the effects of inflation shocks on the public debt-to-GDP ratio in 19 advanced economies using simulation and estimation approaches. The simulations suggest that 1 percentage point shock to the inflation rate can reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio by about 0.7 percentage points on average across countries, while the estimated impulse responses are a little larger and more persistent. Additional assumptions taking into account financial repression do not necessarily make these effects substantially larger. These results imply that modestly higher inflation, even if accompanied by some financial repression, could reduce the public debt burden only marginally.     

股权结构、债务治理与“效率悖论”——基于A股上市公司的经验数据

我国上市公司债务治理效应整体偏弱,公司业绩与债务水平显著负相关,但由于直接财务效应影响的差异性,以及债务期限结构、公司控制人性质、股权集中度和流通股比重等因素的作用,使债务水平具有较好的托宾Q效应,从而出现效率悖论现象。改善债务期限结构,增强金融机构对外信贷的预算约束和监控力度,加强国有投资主体对控股公司的约束力,强化股权制衡关系,加强证券市场建设,是解决这一问题的主要途径。     

Financial Globalization,Financial Crises,and the External Portfolio Structure of Emerging Markets*

We study the transitional dynamics of financial integration in emerging economies using a two‐sector model with a collateral constraint on external debt and trading costs incurred by foreign investors. The probability of a financial crisis displays overshooting; it rises sharply initially and then falls sharply, but remains non‐zero in the long run. While equity holdings fall permanently, bond holdings initially fall, but rise after the probability of a crisis peaks. Conversely, asset returns and asset prices first rise and then fall. These results are in line with the post‐globalization dynamics observed in emerging markets, and the higher frequency of crises that they display.     

西方金融资本主义下的寄生阶级、债务通缩与大萧条——兼评迈克尔·赫德森的金融资本主义批判理论

金融资本生成于产业资本、商业资本和银行资本的垄断融合。在支配生产、流通和信用的基础上,金融资本通过定价权、金融投机、地租寻租、支配国债、滥用货币发行权等途径而建立一套寄生性的积累机制。随着金融资本对生产关系的全面支配,金融资本的寄生性积累也越来越系统化、自主化,造成的社会危机也越来越不容易从外部加以克服,但同时,金融资本内部自我否定的逻辑却表现得越来越强烈。金融资本的寄生性积累导致债务膨胀和产业萎缩相互加强的危机,即债务通缩危机。新自由主义量化宽松的反通缩政策,在一定程度上避免了旧版大萧条,却导致了更难以解决的新版大萧条。美国学者赫德森把对金融资本寄生性积累的批判纳入到从古典政治经学到马克思主义政治经济学的传统中,从金融资本的寄生性积累探讨西方经济、政治危机的根源,虽然其金融资本批判理论还因缺乏辩证逻辑而有一定的缺点,但是该理论基本的理论方向是值得肯定的。