Does the Bond Market Predict Bankruptcy Settlements?

This study shows the extent to which deviations from the absolute priority rule increase or decrease the bankruptcy emergence payoff to traded (i.e., usually junior claimants) bondholders. The data indicate that, on average, bondholders benefit, albeit slightly, from absolute priority rule (APR) violations. This paper also examines the degree to which the bond market, in the bankruptcy filing month, anticipates departures from the APR and other influences on the payoff to bondholders. In other words, we investigate the informational efficiency of the market for bankrupt bonds. Overall, despite the complex and lengthy nature of bankruptcy proceedings, the results support efficiency.     

Dynamic capital structure with callable debt and debt renegotiations

We consider a dynamic trade-off model of a firm's capital structure with debt renegotiation. Debt holders only accept restructuring offers from equity holders backed by threats which are in the equity holders' own interest to execute. Our model shows that in a complete information model in which taxes and bankruptcy costs are the only frictions, violations of the absolute priority rule (APR) are typically optimal. The size of the bankruptcy costs and the equity holders' bargaining power affect the size of APR violations, but they have only a minor impact on the choice of capital structure.     

Empirical Tests of Boundary Conditions for Toronto Stock Exchange Options

Using option and stock transaction data for the period 1978–1979, three issues were investigated: first, the conformance of observed prices to various boundary conditions; second, the evolution of the market over time, as the volume of trading and the number of listed options increased; and third, to test the efficiency of the market. It was found that violations did occur. Using a trading rule based on the signal of observed violations, the results suggest that even after transaction costs the market was inefficient over the sample period.     

The Choice Between Equity and Debt: An Empirical Study

This empirical study of security issues by UK companies between 1959 and 1974 focuses on how companies select between financing instruments at a given point in time. It throws light on a number of interesting questions. First, it demonstrates that companies are heavily influenced by market conditions and the past history of security prices in choosing between debt and equity. Second, it provides evidence that companies appear to make their choice of financing instrument as if they have target levels of debt in mind. Finally, the results are consistent with the notion that these target debt levels are themselves a function of company size, bankruptcy risk, and asset composition.     

Differences in Trading Behavior across NYSE Specialist Firms

Using a sample of NYSE-listed equities from 1992, this study examines whether market maker performance differs across specialist firms. We find that spreads and depth differ across specialist firms, but the competitiveness of NYSE quotes relative to other exchanges does not appear to be affected by these differences. Differences are also evident in measures of transitory volatility and in the frequency and duration of order-imbalance trading halts. The results suggest that specialists have a significant effect on execution costs, liquidity, and noise in security prices and that these effects are not completely eliminated by competition or the NYSE's monitoring mechanisms.     

Strategic price complexity in retail financial markets

There is mounting empirical evidence to suggest that the law of one price is violated in retail financial markets: there is significant price dispersion even when products are homogeneous. Also, despite the large number of firms in the market, prices remain above marginal cost and may even rise as more firms enter. In a non-cooperative oligopoly pricing model, I show that these anomalies arise when firms add complexity to their price structures. Complexity increases the market power of the firms because it prevents some consumers from becoming knowledgeable about prices in the market. In the model, as competition increases, firms tend to add more complexity to their prices as a best response, rather than make their disclosures more transparent. Because this may substantially decrease consumer surplus in these markets, such practices have important welfare implications.     

Bankruptcy probability changes and the differential informativeness of bond upgrades and downgrades

Prior studies have found that stock returns around announcements of bond upgrades are insignificant, but that stock prices respond negatively to announcements of bond downgrades. This asymmetric stock market reaction suggests either that bond downgrades are timelier than upgrades, or that voluntary disclosures by managers preempt upgrades but not downgrades. This study investigates these conjectures by examining changes in firms’ probabilities of bankruptcy (assessed using bankruptcy prediction models) and voluntary disclosure activity around rating change announcements. The results indicate that the assessed probability of bankruptcy decreases before bond upgrades, but not after. By contrast, the assessed probability of bankruptcy increases both before and after bond downgrades. We also find that controlling for potential wealth-transfer related rating actions, which can impact stock returns differently, does not alter our results. Tests of press releases and earnings forecasts issued by firms suggest that the differential informativeness of upgrades and downgrades is not caused by differences in pre-rating change voluntary disclosures by upgraded and downgraded firms. The results support the hypothesis that downgrades are timelier than upgrades.     

Estimation of Implicit Bankruptcy Costs

This paper presents a new methodology, quasilinear estimation, for efficiently estimating economic variables reflected in the prices of corporate securities. For example, ex ante bankruptcy costs are not directly observable, however, if these costs are sufficiently large, then current security prices are affected and bankruptcy costs can be indirectly measured. When bankruptcy costs and other relevant parameters are known, there are many numerical solution techniques that can be used to determine security prices. One technique, the method of lines, is compatible with quasilinear estimation, which has been employed extensively in the physical sciences for the estimation of coefficients in differential equation models. We demonstrate that quasilinear estimation is a potentially reliable and efficient technique for the estimation of corporate bankruptcy costs and the asset variance from security prices.     

Price,trade size,and information in securities markets

This paper investigates the effect of trade size on security prices. We show that trade size introduces an adverse selection problem into security trading because, given that they wish to trade, informed traders perfer to trade larger amounts at any given price. As a result, market makers' pricing strategies must also depend on trade size, with large trades being made at less favorable prices. Our model provides one explanation for the price effect of block trades and demonstrates that both the size and the sequence of trades matter in determining the price-trade size relationship.     

Forum-Shopping and Personal Bankruptcy

The dramatic increase in U.S. personal bankruptcy filings of the last fifteen years has focused attention on the wide disparities between different states' personal bankruptcy exemptions. These differences have been criticized both on the grounds of equity and also because they provide an incentive to move to a state with a higher exemption before declaring bankruptcy, that is to forum-shop. This paper focuses on the latter of these objections. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we estimate a Nested Logit model of the household migration decision. Our econometric approach specifically avoids the problem of endogenously induced bankruptcy filings by examining the effect of filing propensity, rather than the actual event of filing, on the tendency to migrate to a higher exemption state. We conclude that while there is indeed evidence that considerations of bankruptcy laws do influence interstate migration, the actual effect is relatively modest. We estimate that, in any given year, roughly one percent of moves to higher-exemption states are motivated by considerations of differences in bankruptcy laws; by way of comparison, this is roughly comparable to the magnitude of recent estimates of welfare-induced migration. This suggests that the emphasis on differences in exemptions which has been a feature of recent attempts to reform the bankruptcy code is somewhat exaggerated.     

市场操纵降低了中国股票市场的信息效率吗——来自沪市A股高频交易数据的经验证据

本文以尾市交易操纵为研究对象,尝试对中国股票市场可疑的尾市操纵行为进行识别与监测,并基于监测结果实证分析市场操纵如何影响市场信息效率。具体来看,本文利用沪市A股2013-2018年的日内高频交易数据,基于股票尾市交易相关指标异常变化特征,构建了尾市交易操纵识别模型,实证检验了市场操纵对信息效率的影响。研究结果表明,市场操纵对信息效率存在不利影响,市场操纵后股票流动性和股票波动性的异常变化是影响信息效率的关键传导路径,上述结论在考虑内生性问题后依然稳健。此外,研究还发现,国有企业、上市公司信息披露质量较高的情形下,市场操纵对信息效率不利影响程度较小。     

On long-term credit risk assessment and rating: towards a new set of models

Institutional investors are supposed to assess credit risk by using a combination of quantitative information such as option models and qualitative assessments. Although option models can be easily constructed, they are not so suitable for the assessment of long-term credit risk that is required by institutional investors. This is mainly because the probability of bankruptcy varies so widely depending on the timing of assessment. We propose a new set of assessment models for long-term credit risk which does not necessarily use stock prices and may incorporate business cycles. The new grand model consists of the two pillars: a long-term cash flow prediction model and a credit risk spread assessment model. The calculated values derived from these models are effectively usable for reasonable calculation of risk spreads. It is quite interesting to see that our investigation indicates that rating bias may exist in the credit risk assessment of the market.     

RISK MANAGEMENT FOR MIDDLE MARKET COMPANIES

This article reinforces the message of the one immediately preceding by showing that small to medium‐sized firms have even stronger (non‐tax) motives for hedging risks than their large corporate counterparts. Although middle market companies have traditionally been viewed as less sophisticated than their larger corporate counterparts in the risk management arena, the authors suggest that such companies have become increasingly receptive to new hedging strategies using derivative products. When used appropriately, such products allow companies to stabilize their periodic operating cash flow by eliminating specific sources of volatility such as fluctuations in interest rates, exchange rates, and commodity prices. Smaller companies recognize that a single swing in a budgeted cost can have a catastrophic effect on an entire budget, whereas a larger company can more easily absorb such a cost. Moreover, because the principal owners of mid‐sized firms often have a substantial part of their net worth tied up in the business, they are likely to have a far stronger interest than typical outside shareholders in using risk management to reduce the volatility of corporate profits and firm value. Perhaps most important to owners whose firms rely on debt financing, the greater cash flow stability resulting from active risk management significantly reduces the possibility of financial distress or bankruptcy. In this article, three representatives of Bank of America's risk management practice discuss three different exposures faced by middle market companies—those arising from changes in interest rates, foreign exchange rates, and commodity prices—and show how these risks can be managed with derivatives. Besides shielding companies from financial trouble, risk management is also likely to improve their access to the money and capital markets. By protecting the firm's access to capital, risk management increases the odds that the firm will not be forced to pass up good investment opportunities because of capital constraints or fear of getting into financial difficulty.     

Trading frenzies and their impact on real investment

We study a model in which a capital provider learns from the price of a firm's security in deciding how much capital to provide for new investment. This feedback effect from the financial market to the investment decision gives rise to trading frenzies, in which speculators all wish to trade like others, generating large pressure on prices. Coordination among speculators is sometimes desirable for price informativeness and investment efficiency, but speculators' incentives push in the opposite direction, so that they coordinate exactly when it is undesirable. We analyze the effect of various market parameters on the likelihood of trading frenzies to arise.     

Predicting Bankruptcy Resolution

This study examines classification and prediction of the bankruptcy resolution event. Filing of bankruptcy is resolved through one of three alternative resolutions: acquisition, emergence or liquidation. Predicting the final bankruptcy resolution has not been examined in the prior accounting and finance literature. This post-bankruptcy classification and prediction of the final resolution is harder than discriminating between healthy and bankrupt firms because all filing firms are already in financial distress. Motivation for predicting the final resolution is developed and enhanced. A sample of 237 firms filing for bankruptcy is used. Classification and prediction accuracies are determined using a logit model. A ten-variable, three-group resolution logit model, which includes five accounting and five non-accounting variables is developed. The model correctly classifies 62 percent of the firms, significantly better than a random classification. We conclude that non-accounting data add relevant information to financial accounting data for predicting post bankruptcy resolution. Further, public policy implications for investors, researchers, bankruptcy judges, claimants and other stakeholders are discussed.     

Market Created Risk

We develop a multiperiod rational expectations model of securities market equilibrium in which equilibrium prices may move between periods even though it is common knowledge that no new information has arrived about ultimate security payoffs. This happens because investors know they have imperfect information about the endowments of other investors and this knowledge affects their probability beliefs about the prices that will prevail at the intermediate trading date. These beliefs are reflected in the equilibrium at the initial trading date when investors focus on the probabilities of intermediate capital gains and losses, rather than ultimate payoffs.     

IFRS Adoption and Stock Prices of Japanese Firms in Governance System Transition

This study examines firms' decision to voluntarily adopt IFRS in a setting where there are changes to the governance system in a traditionally code law country, as well as how the market responds to such decisions. We find the probability of voluntary IFRS adoption to be higher among firms that have a high proportion of foreign shareholders, undertake quality audits, have low levels of leverage, feature a nominating committee, and are included in the new market index. In addition, the stock prices of IFRS adopters tend to increase around the announcement date of IFRS adoption, compared to those of non-adopters. Finally, market reactions are smaller for firms that feature a nominating committee, and are included in the new market index—perhaps because IFRS adoption by these firms is less surprising to market participants, and because IFRS adoption is not expected to add large incremental value to these firms.     

Stressed,Not Frozen: The Federal Funds Market in the Financial Crisis

We examine the importance of liquidity hoarding and counterparty risk in the U.S. overnight interbank market during the financial crisis of 2008. Our findings suggest that counterparty risk plays a larger role than does liquidity hoarding: the day after Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy, loan terms become more sensitive to borrower characteristics. In particular, poorly performing large banks see an increase in spreads of 25 basis points, but are borrowing 1% less, on average. Worse performing banks do not hoard liquidity. While the interbank market does not freeze entirely, it does not seem to expand to meet latent demand.     

BANKRUPTCY DISCRIMINATION WITH REAL VARIABLES

This paper reconsiders the accepted usage of nondeflated financial ratios in statistical models to differentiate between failed and nonfailed firms. Non-deflated ratios are hypothesized to inadequately reflect inter-temporal macroeconomic fluctuations that affect the ability of firm's to survive. Using a sample of 124 oil and gas companies between the period 1982–1988, the going concern assumption is evaluated with statistical logit models using either nondeflated or deflated financial ratios. Deflated company ratios are created by transforming data with price indices or by creating market value ratios. Empirical results suggest that a superior bankruptcy early warning model is developed for the oil and gas industry by creating real financial and reserve ratios and by introducing external factors, such as oil prices, interest rates and accounting method, as independent predictors. Overall classification accuracy is approximately 95 percent.