Debt financing,first-mover advantage,and vertical product differentiation

This paper examines the impact of the strategic use of debt financing as a commitment device, in a vertically differentiated duopoly with demand uncertainty. We consider various possible game sequences for two firms with asymmetric financial structures to enter the market. The results show that (i) having access to external debt does not necessarily promote the firm to provide a higher quality product; (ii) strategic debt improves the degree of product differentiation and benefits both firms; and (iii) a firm's optimal debt level is positively related to the first-mover advantage of introducing its product to the market.     

Economic policy uncertainty and cost of debt financing: International evidence

Prior research shows that economic policy uncertainty affects a wide range of corporate financial decisions; however, there is little research on the relationship between economic policy uncertainty and cost of debt financing across countries. In this paper, we argue that economic policy uncertainty affects cost of debt financing through two mechanisms including information asymmetry and default risk. With a sample of 163,243 firm-years across 17 countries from 2003 to 2016, we find that economic policy uncertainty positively affects cost of debt financing and this effect is stronger during the global financial crisis from 2008 to 2009. Moreover, our research findings show that large firms’ debt financing cost is less affected by economic policy uncertainty.     

How does a firm's life cycle influence the relationship between carbon performance and financial debt?

In a progressively more stringent regulatory context concerning greenhouse gas emissions derived from a growing awareness of how economic activity affects our environment, this study analyzes how the firm's life cycle affects the relationship between carbon performance and financial debt. Using panel data on a sample of European listed firms during the 2005–2018 period, we find evidence suggesting that firms with better carbon performance have greater access to external financing during their growth stages and lesser access during maturity, although it has no effect during the shake-out stage. Furthermore, carbon performance has a strong positive effect during growth, maturity, and shake-out when firms need to finance additional tangible investments. We also find that the negative relationship between liquidity and debt is reversed during innovative stages for firms with better carbon performance. Our results are robust to the use of alternative measures of life cycle stages and to the consideration of industrial, legal, and cultural contexts.     

中国中小板企业上市前融资偏好实证研究

本文采取理论分析与实证研究相结合的方法,对中国中小企业板上市公司上市前财务数据进行统计分析。通过研究我们得到结论,中国中小企业上市前偏重内部融资和债权融资,并且债权融资比重不断上升,而股权融资相对比重较小,总的融资顺序不完全符合优序融资理论。本文意在通过对成长性良好的中小板企业上市前的融资行为的研究,分析影响企业选择不同融资结构的因素,给其他中小企业融资提供参考,并且总结改善中小企业融资问题的途径。     

Characteristics of firms that issue convertible debt versus convertible preferred stock

This study examines the characteristics of firms that issue convertible debt versus firms that issue convertible preferred stock. The findings are consistent with the agency, information asymmetry, optimal capital structure, financial distress, and tax benefits hypotheses. The findings also indicate that these two types of convertible securities are used to raise external capital by distinctively different groups of firms. First, convertible preferred stock issuing firms have larger nondebt tax shields and higher levels of financial, operating, and bankruptcy risks than convertible debt issuing firms. Second, firms that issue convertible debt have greater free cash flow (financial slack) and growth potential than firms that issue convertible preferred stock.     

海归人才有助于企业债务融资吗?——基于CEO权力视角的分析

本文以2008~2016年A股上市公司为样本,基于CEO权力视角,研究了CEO海外经历对企业债务融资成本的影响。研究发现,具备海外经历的CEO所在企业拥有更低的债务融资成本;当具有海外经历的CEO持有公司股权、在公司任职时间较长、具备较高的学历时,更能发挥对于公司债务融资成本的降低作用。本文的研究丰富了CEO海外经历对企业财务行为影响方面的研究,也为全面评估人才引进政策补充了经验证据。     

How Do Financial Constraints Relate to Financial Reporting Quality? Evidence from Seasoned Equity Offerings

This paper examines how constraints on firms’ financing capacity relate to managers’ discretionary accounting choices. Three hypotheses of earnings management – the opportunism hypothesis, the rational expectations hypothesis, and the signaling hypothesis – predict that constrained firms engage in greater upward earnings management than unconstrained firms when selling equity. Using a sample of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) announced between 1983 and 2014, I find support for this prediction. The relation between financial constraints and earnings management is robust to including controls such as offer size, growth opportunities, analyst following, and chief executive officer equity holdings, as well as to using the instrumental variable approach. Investors’ reaction around and following the SEO announcement supports the rational expectations hypothesis. I find that aggressive earnings management by constrained issuers is associated with lower SEO announcement returns but is not followed by negative abnormal returns in the long run. The evidence suggests that constrained issuers’ aggressive use of income-increasing accruals is an outcome of managerial myopia caused by capital market pressure, not managerial opportunism intended to mislead investors.     

Surviving chapter 11: Why small firms prefer supplier financing

This research examines the value of trade credit relationships for small firms. We initially document the benefits of trade credit relationships and_explain why small firms in financial distress tend to prefer trade credit from suppliers over bank financing. Banks do not agree to debt reduction, additional financing, or deviate from absolute priority. Implicitly, banks’ interests are best served by forcing liquidation through Chapter 7. Secured suppliers with pre-petition debt tend to provide debtor-in-possession financing, while unsecured suppliers are more likely to agree to deviations from absolute priority. Hence, suppliers’ interests are best served by facilitating reorganization through Chapter 11.     

The Impact of Thin‐Capitalization Rules on External Debt Usage – A Propensity Score Matching Approach

Thin‐capitalization rules (TCRs) aim at limiting the tax advantage of internal debt financing by restricting the tax deductibility of the corresponding interest expenses. This article examines how subsidiaries of multinational firms respond to a change in the German thin‐capitalization legislation. The empirical analysis not only demonstrates that the TCR effectively restricts internal debt financing, it also suggests that firms are able to avoid taxation of interest by substituting external for internal debt. The empirical approach applies propensity score matching techniques and exploits the German tax reform 2001 to solve endogeneity problems.     

环境信息披露的融资效应——来自重污染企业的证据

环境信息披露是推进生态环境治理体系和治理能力现代化的重要举措。以2009—2020年沪深A股重污染上市公司为样本,分析了环境信息披露对企业融资方式的影响,揭示了其异质性。实证结果表明：环境信息披露促进了企业的外部融资,而在外部融资中债权融资是主要方式,债权融资的来源是金融负债,而非经营负债;环境信息披露能够提高企业社会声誉,优化投资结构,提高外部金融机构的信任,进而吸引更多金融机构贷款;环境信息披露的融资效应具有明显的异质性特点,在高成长性企业、中小企业和弱环境规制地区企业更为显著。     

Asset specificity,capital intensity and capital structure: An empirical test

Capital investment and capital financing decisions interact. To resolve current controversies in investment-leverage-growth relationships requires an integrated industrial organization/financial economics empirical model of profit margins, capital investment intensity, leverage and risk. Using cumulative future losses in discontinued operations to measure the asset specificity of the firm's investments, empiricai results support a complementary (positive) relationship between debt and investment, the debt financing of verifiable contemporaneous growth, equity financing of future growth and the debt financing of specific assets. This evidence rejects the transactions cost theory of capital structure in Fortune 500 firms.     

Stock price effect of high-yield debt issues

This paper investigates the common stock price reaction at the announcement of the issuance of high-yield straight debt. The two-day announcement period abnormal returns are not different from zero for the 164 bond issues in the sample. No difference is found between announcement period abnormal returns of firms with bonds that default and firms with bonds that do not default. Results from statistical tests indicate that the announcement period abnormal returns are not explained by issuance year, bond-rate class, underwriter, issuance size, takeover activity or prior high-yield debt issuance experience. The findings are not consistent with the models by Miller and Rock (1985), Jensen (1986), Myers and Majluf (1984) and Krasker (1986). However, results indicate that existing stockholders are not harmed or helped by the issuance of the high-yield straight debt.     

Financing constraints and the use of performance-sensitive debt

Performance-sensitive debt (PSD) is a popular financial instrument in the corporate private debt market. In a real-options setting, this paper aims to clarify how PSD impacts on investment policy, capital structure, and agency cost of financing constraints when the firm faces the upper limit of debt issuance. We show that the constrained leverage hardly depends on the performance sensitivity. In particular, our conclusions predict that PSD can decrease the severity of financing constraints relative to the fixed-coupon debt case and the loss of firm value arising from investment and financing distortions due to the presence of financing constraints. The higher the performance sensitivity, the less likely that the firm is financially constrained. These findings provide a novel investment-based explanation for issuance of PSD.     

公司发行可转换债券融资的动机分析

公司使用可转换债券筹集外部资金既是作为普通债券的替代,增加转换特性来降低利息率从而保持现金流量,也是转换条款建立“延迟股权”,通过转换,以高于现行股票的价格出售。本文研究发现,公司发行可转换债券是为了减少由于股东和管理者以及股东和债权人之间冲突所引起的代理成本;为了降低由发行普通债券带来的高额预期财务危机成本和普通股发行中经常出现的严重负面公告效应;以及在投资者和管理者对公司面临的风险认识不同时,使其价值不易受公司风险变化的影响。     

The effect of firm financial characteristics and the availability of alternative finance on IPO underpricing

This article tests the hypothesis that the financial characteristics of the issuing firm, along with the availability of alternative sources of financing, are important determinants of the level of underpricing. While risk and its relationship to underpricing have been examined in previous studies, liquidity risk is unique because of its special implications for a firm’s bargaining position with the underwriter. Consistent with my hypothesis, firms with greater liquidity concerns at the IPO experience greater underpricing. On the other hand, firms with higher levels of venture capital funding and/or debt financing are more fully priced.     

Mixed ownership of industrial firms in Japan: debt financing,banks and vertical keiretsu groups

In the 1980s, Japanese bank-driven corporate governance practices were often said to be part of the explanation for Japan’s economic success. However, these practices became suspected causes of Japan’s continuing recession following the burst of the financial bubble in 1990. Since then Japanese banks have suffered from increasing numbers of non-performing loans. Consequently, banks have become less able to act as the benefactors for Japanese firms. In response to the reduced supply of bank loans, Japanese firms have been exploring issuing corporate bonds and other types of public debt as alternative methods of debt financing. The objective of this paper is to examine empirically how Japanese manufacturers have responded to the deteriorating financial conditions of Japanese banks from a corporate finance perspective. In particular, we are interested in knowing whether Japanese banks’ involvement in corporate governance has declined with the increase in public debt issuances. Our empirical results seem to suggest that Japanese banks play a significant role in their client firms’ issuances of public debt and hence continue to play a significant role in corporate governance.     

Financial liberalization and firms’ capital structure adjustments evidence from Southeast Asia and South America

This paper investigates the impact of financial liberalization on the adjustment of debt ratios in 12 emerging markets using firm-level data from 1991 to 2004. The results support the central hypothesis of this paper that adjustment costs are important in explaining firms’ adjustment toward their debt ratio targets. Our results show that deviations from targets are halved within 1.09 years in South America and 1.19 years in Southeast Asia, suggesting speed of adjustment is relatively faster in South American countries than Southeast Asian countries. Furthermore, our results show that after full liberalization those countries where rule of law and creditors rights were properly enforced, firms had higher adjustment speed compared to those countries where such enforcement was not present.The estimated adjustment coefficients imply that on average firms’ adjustment speeds have increased in all South American countries over the period of financial liberalization. On the contrary, firms’ adjustment speeds did not increase in Southeast Asian countries, reflecting the uneven effect of liberalization on the firms’ financing behaviour in Asian countries. There was a significant reduction in time (in years) taken to half the gap between actual debt ratios and targets only in Pakistan and South Korea. This finding supports the idea of uncertain impact of financial liberalization programs on the domestic financial markets in those emerging markets which started opening up their market and integrating with the rest of the world latter than others. These findings have significant implications for the sequence of banking sector liberalization in the emerging markets.     

IS THE CAPITAL STRUCTURE LOGIC OF CORPORATE FINANCE APPLICABLE TO INSURERS? REVIEW AND ANALYSIS

Since the financial crisis of 2008, next to banks, insurers have received increasing attention from researchers and regulators because of their crucial role in the financial system. A key point for a stable insurer is its capital structure, i.e. the choice between equity, debt and provisions in financing its operations. Based on earlier work a quickly developing literature has directly applied capital structure theories (in particular trade-off and pecking order) from corporate finance to insurers’ financing choices. Corporate finance concepts used herein however, are developed for industrial firms. In this paper we provide an overview of the literature on the capital structure of insurers, but contribute by systematically clarifying how to account for the specificities of insurers when transferring the trade-off and pecking-order logic from an industrial to an insurer context. This way, we add several new insights on an insurer's choice between equity, financial debt and provisions. In particular, we are able to explain why, as compared to industrial firms, insurers use less financial debt, and why insurers focus so strongly on self-financing. Finally, we identify multiple avenues for future research.     

To What Extent Does the Interest Burden Affect Firm Survival? Evidence from a Panel of UK Firms during the Recent Financial Crisis

Using a panel of mainly unquoted UK firms over the period 2000–09, we document a significant effect of changes in the interest burden from debt‐servicing on firm survival. The effect is found to be stronger during the recent financial crisis compared with more tranquil periods. Furthermore, the survival chances of bank‐dependent, younger, and non‐exporting firms are most affected by changes in the interest burden, especially during the crisis. Our results are robust to using different estimation methods and different interest burden measures They suggest that one way for policymakers to mitigate the effects of financial crises by limiting firm failures would be to prevent financing costs from rising, especially for those firms more likely to face liquidity constraints.     

Cyclical capital structure decisions

Past literature has documented clear trends in the leverage ratio and other capital structure choices made by US firms. We expand this line of research by showing that aggregate capital structure ratios of US firms, during the last decades, are characterised not only by time trends but also by clear cycles. We set the start and end dates of these cycles using a ‘classical approach’. The cycles relating to the ratio of new shares versus debt are shorter and are more intense than the cycles regarding the term of the new debt obligations. The cycles that describe the ratio of retained earnings versus new equity issues are wider in relative terms and with similar duration to the cycles of decisions on external versus internal financing. This means that the decision to substitute debt for shares (or vice versa) is much more common, frequent and significant, than the decision term debt.