欧债危机重燃的背后

2010年12月21日,国务院副总理王岐山在第三次中欧经贸高层对话上表示：＂中国支持欧盟和国际货币基金组织采取的一揽子金融稳定措施,并将以实际行动帮助欧盟一些国家应对主权债务危机。这表明,不断加强互利共赢的中欧经济合作符合中国和欧盟的根本利益。＂     

欧洲主权债务危机演进及对中资银行的启示

受全球金融危机的持续影响和欧元区制度问题的激化,欧洲主权债务危机呈愈演愈烈之势,逐步从边缘国家扩散至核心国家,并从主权债务危机向银行业危机演化。目前,欧元区重债国采取的财务整顿政策难以在短期发挥缩减赤字的作用,反而加大复苏风险;对重债国援助资金总量有限,其发放门槛徒增短期违约风险;欧洲央行购买国债虽有利于缓解危机恶化,但量化宽松的政策与其控制通胀的设立宗旨存在矛盾。在此背景下,中资银行应调整涉欧资产配置,进一步加强国别风险研究和管理,积极稳健地推进国际化经营,打造资产、业务和经营地域多元化的国际化银行。     

欧美债务危机的政治学解析

欧美债务危机此起彼伏,深刻地影响着世界经济的走向与发展。对于债务危机爆发的原因,很多人只关注其经济方面存在的问题,而对于其政治制度根源却置若罔闻。本文阐释了出西方民主政治制度是如何一步步地导致债务危机却又无力挽救债务危机的逻辑理路,并进一步揭示出西方以选举政治为核心的民主政治制度的诸多弊端以及中国民主政治制度的内在优越性。     

Debt in industry equilibrium

This article shows (1) how entry and exit of firms in a competitiveindustry affect the valuation of securities and optimal capitalstructure, and (2) how, given a trade-off between tax advantagesand agency costs, a firm will optimally adjust its leveragelevel after it is set up. We derive simple pricing expressionsfor corporate debt in which the price elasticity of demand forindustry output plays a crucial role. When a firm optimallyadjusts its leverage over time, we show that total firm valuecomprises the value of discounted cash flows assuming fixedcapital structure, plus a continuum of options for marginalincreases in debt.     

Variable Rate Debt Instruments and Corporate Debt Policy

Sustained high rate of inflation has led to the creation of debt instruments with variable interest rate. The availability of these debt instruments presents management with the problem of the choice of the optimal debt portfolio. This paper deals with this problem assuming a given, and optimal, debt to equity ratio. Given expected monetary value maximization, an efficient frontier is derived in terms of the expected net income and probability of bankruptcy, where net income is defined as operating income minus debt repayment. This efficient frontier is shown to be also mean-variance efficient. It is also shown that in most cases the optimal debt portfolio includes more than one debt instrument. In other words, the firm will avoid the policy of minimizing the expected cost of its debt repayments or the policy of minimizing the costs of bankruptcy. The optimal solution itself is affected by market variables like the relative expected cost of different debt instruments and by firm specific variables like the variability of its operating income stream, and the covariance between the operating income and the debt repayments.     

Debt Specialization

This paper examines debt structure using a new and comprehensive database on types of debt employed by public U.S. firms. We find that 85% of the sample firms borrow predominantly with one type of debt, and the degree of debt specialization varies widely across different subsamples—large rated firms tend to diversify across multiple debt types, while small unrated firms specialize in fewer types. We suggest several explanations for why debt specialization takes place, and show that firms employing few types of debt have higher bankruptcy costs, are more opaque, and lack access to some segments of the debt markets.     

Debt Dynamics

We develop a dynamic trade‐off model with endogenous choice of leverage, distributions, and real investment in the presence of a graduated corporate income tax, individual taxes on interest and corporate distributions, financial distress costs, and equity flotation costs. We explain several empirical findings inconsistent with the static trade‐off theory. We show there is no target leverage ratio, firms can be savers or heavily levered, leverage is path dependent, leverage is decreasing in lagged liquidity, and leverage varies negatively with an external finance weighted average Q. Using estimates of structural parameters, we find that simulated model moments match data moments.     

农田水利的“欠账”

2011年的中央一号文件《加快水利改革发展的决定》,是新中国成立以来,党中央首次系统部署水利改革发展的决定。今年的中央一号文件之所以选择水利这个主题,既是对近期严重的水旱灾害的及时响应,同时也是着眼于粮食安全和经济社会可持续发展,未雨绸缪的一种战略抉择。家庭承包制改革之前30年兴修的水利工程,国家总投资共763亿元,而社队自筹及劳动积累,估计达580亿元。但近年来我国农田水利建设投入远滞后于现实需要。     

Asset Maturity, Debt Covenants, and Debt Maturity Choice

The existing research on debt‐maturity under asymmetric information has focused on the impact of differential information regarding asset quality on the debt maturity decision. This research has generally indicated the optimality of short‐term debt financing as a vehicle of mitigating the adverse selection problem. In this paper, I consider the impact of information asymmetry regarding the maturity structure of cash flows on the debt maturity decision. In this context, long‐term debt is generally the form of debt financing most effective in alleviating the adverse selection problem. I also show that costs of adverse selection may induce some mismatching of debt maturity and asset maturity in the presence of significant transaction costs.     

中国政府债务可持续性和债务风险动态评估研究

债务杠杆率和债务可持续性是评估债务风险的两个重要指标。我国目前面临高政府债务杠杆率、高赤字率及经济下行压力。本文通过对债务杠杆率计算方法的分解以及对债务可持续性的分析发现:提高政府部门的投资效率将是降低当前政府部门债务杠杆的一个有效手段;当前国际所通用的债务上限标准并不适用于我国。本文还通过构建SVAR模型,进一步对我国债务情况进行了实证分析,发现财政赤字率和经济增长率的变化在当期对债务杠杆率产生的影响较小,其影响主要发生在其后的两到三年。针对这一分析结果,本文提出了相应的政策建议。     

Drilling and Debt

This paper documents a previously unrecognized debt-related investment distortion. Using detailed project-level data for 69 firms in the oil and gas industry, we find that highly levered firms pull forward investment, completing projects early at the expense of long-run project returns and project value. This behavior is particularly pronounced prior to debt renegotiations. We test several channels that could explain this behavior and find evidence consistent with equity holders sacrificing long-run project returns to enhance collateral values and, by extension, mitigate lending frictions at debt renegotiations.     

Predictors of revenue shifting and expense shifting: Evidence from an emerging economy

Prior literature established that managers engage in Revenue Shifting (RS) and Expense Shifting (ES) with an intent to report favourable operating performance; our paper extends such research in a new direction by investigating both forms based on the need, ease, and advantage of each form of shifting strategy. The study identifies firm-specific factors that incentivize firms to prefer RS over ES and vice-versa. We undertake a longitudinal study (2001–2019) using a sample size of 39,634 firm-years, enlisted in the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Our results show that peer-performance, size, financial leverage, growth opportunities, accounting flexibility, and age of the firm are important determinants of RS and ES. Specifically, our results exhibit that large, levered, old, and high-growth firms are engaged in RS, whereas small, young, firms with lesser accounting flexibility, and firms operating below peer-performance are involved in ES. These results are robust to controlling for accruals earnings management, real earnings management, endogeneity, self-selection bias, and alternative measures of RS and ES. Our findings are helpful to auditors and investors in improving awareness of forms of classification shifting.     

政府管债技术论

政府的债务问题属于经济增长与发展中的问题,对债务进行管理,需要从经济增长与发展的大环境角度出发。经济的持续稳定增长,再加上有良好的财政状况,政府的债务不一定就对政府造成财政负担。     

Strategic Debt Service

When firms experience financial distress, equity holders may act strategically, forcing concessions from debtholders and paying less than the originally-contracted interest payments. This article incorporates strategic debt service in a standard, continuous time asset pricing model, developing simple closed-form expressions for debt and equity values. We find that strategic debt service can account for a substantial proportion of the premium on risky corporate debt. We analyze the efficiency implications of strategic debt service, showing that it can eliminate both direct bankruptcy costs and agency costs of debt.     

放松利率管制、过度负债与债务期限结构

放松利率管制不仅消除了信贷市场摩擦,而且可以通过调整贷款利率水平以实现信贷风险与资金成本之间的匹配,从而对企业资本结构选择产生影响。本文以2000-2015年我国A股非金融类上市公司为研究样本,从企业杠杆选择和债务期限结构两个方面来实证检验放松利率管制如何影响企业资本结构。检验结果发现:放松利率管制不仅显著抑制企业过度负债,加快资本结构调整速度,而且延长企业债务期限。进一步检验还发现,放松利率管制显著抑制企业短贷长投行为,降低企业现金与现金流之间的敏感性。以上问题的研究不仅在理论上证实了放松利率管制影响企业杠杆选择以及资本错配的具体作用机理,而且在实践方面对于我们进一步推进利率市场化进程,完善市场在资源配置中的决定性作用具有重要的政策启示意义。     

Debt Relief: Implications of Secondary Market Discounts and Debt Overhangs

An efficient rescheduling of the debt must take into accountthe market value of the debt. I argue here that the appropriateapproach is not to write down the debt to its value on the secondarymarket, but to scale the flows of payments on the debt. Thekey to an efficient rescheduling is to offer debt relief reflectingthe market discount, where the relief is contingent upon thecountry's adjustment effort (rather than setting repayment terms"once and for all" as in the Brady plan). I propose, as an example,that stabilization or adjustment programs under the aegis ofthe International Monetary Fund or the World Bank could includeprovisions allowing debt servicing or repurchase for a set durationat the secondary market rate. This would both reflect and provideincentives to increase a country's ability to repay.     

Bank Debt versus Bond Debt: Evidence from Secondary Market Prices

This paper uses a new data set of daily secondary market prices of loans to analyze the specialness of banks as monitors. Consistent with a monitoring advantage of loans over bonds, we find the secondary loan market to be informationally more efficient than the secondary bond market prior to a loan default. Specifically, we find that secondary market loan returns Granger cause secondary market bond returns prior to a loan default. In contrast, secondary market bond returns do not Granger cause secondary market loan returns prior to a loan default.