Implications of public corruption for local firms: Evidence from corporate debt maturity

Using political corruption conviction data from the U.S. Department of Justice, we examine the impact of local corruption on firms’ debt maturity structure while exploring both demand-side and supply-side explanations. Our results support the demand-side story and indicate that firms in high corruption areas utilize less short-term debt to mitigate liquidity and refinancing risks. Consistent with this, we find the effect is more pronounced among firms with smaller size, lower asset redeployability, and higher volatility. Our findings remain robust to the inclusion of an array of controls expected to influence debt maturity preferences as well as time, industry, and state fixed effects. Moreover, a seemingly unrelated regression approach, instrumental variables regression, propensity score matching, placebo analyses, and alternative corruption measures corroborate our findings. Altogether, our results indicate that firms alter their debt maturity choices in response to local corruption to limit refinancing risk and the uncertainty created by corrupt government officials.     

CEO inside debt and corporate debt maturity structure

This paper examines the relation between chief executive officer (CEO) inside debt holdings and corporate debt maturity. We provide robust evidence that inside debt has a positive effect on short-maturity debt and that this effect is concentrated in financially unconstrained firms that face lower refinancing risk. Our analysis further shows that CEO inside debt helps reduce the cost of debt financing. Overall, our results indicate that managerial holdings of inside debt facilitate access to external debt financing and reduce refinancing risk, thus incentivizing managers to use less costly shorter term debt.     

An empirical analysis of corporate debt maturity structure

This paper provides an empirical investigation of the maturity structure of corporate debt. A dynamic model is estimated by GMM estimation procedure using data for an unbalanced panel of 429 non-financial UK firms over the period of 1983–96. The evidence provides strong support for the hypotheses that firms with more growth opportunities in their investment sets tend to have more shorter-term debt and firm size exerts a negative impact on debt maturity structure. The results also support the maturity-matching hypothesis that firms match the maturity structure of their debt to the maturity of their assets. There is less support for the view that firms use their debt maturity structure to signal information to the market. We do not find evidence for a negative correlation between taxes and debt maturity. Our results also suggest that firms have long-term target ratios and they adjust to the target ratio relatively fast, which might indicate that the costs of being away from target ratios are significant for firms.     

Does debt capacity matter in the choice of debt in reducing the underinvestment problem?

We test the impact of debt capacity on firms’ simultaneous decisions of leverage and debt maturity in reducing underinvestment problems. Examining 24 OECD countries for the period between 1990 and 2011, we find strong evidence, that, unlike previous studies, the role of leverage and debt maturity in reducing underinvestment problems is not homogeneous across firms with varied debt capacity. We find new evidence that, when firms face lower debt capacity constraints, they benefit from their ability to use a greater amount of debt if they shorten their debt maturity, or gain from using longer maturity of debt if they decrease their leverage to reduce underinvestment problems. Our results suggest that they also benefit from the ability of their firms to gain from interest tax shields by financing more with debt or long-term debt, and hence use debt maturity and leverage as strategies substitutes. However, when firms are constrained by concerns over debt capacity, they tend to opt for a lower level of debt that is mainly short-term to reduce the underinvestment problem. Our results suggest that firms with lower debt capacity cannot completely resolve their underinvestment problems by using short-term debt or low leverage, implying that the effects of the liquidity risk outweigh those of underinvestment problems, and hence impose a constraint on firms’ choice of debt.     

International reserves and the maturity of external debt

This paper studies how the level of international reserves affects the maturity structure of external debt. We show in an illustrative theoretical model that reserves lengthen the maturity of external debt via a flattening of the yield curve. Using data of 66 emerging and developing countries and applying different econometric approaches, we find robust evidence that reserves increase the share of long-term in total external debt. Results hold for private and public external debt individually. Taking reserves and their effect on the debt maturity structure together, they reinforce financial stability.     

The tax-efficient use of debt in multinational corporations

Affiliates of multinationals borrow a considerable amount from their parent company, even when the parent is located in a high-tax country. This is at odds with standard theories of a tax-efficient capital structure. We set up a model that analyzes the functioning of the internal capital market and investigates the trade-off between tax savings and capital market frictions within the group. We test the model on data of the universe of German multinationals. The empirical analysis largely supports our model in that: (i) smaller multinationals often rely on parental debt financing; (ii) larger multinationals are more likely to use internal banks; (iii) parental debt and external debt are substitutes and the mix depends on the relative cost of raising capital through the parent and the affiliates; (iv) local and within-group tax incentives play an important role in determining all three types of debt.     

CEOs versus CFOs: Incentives and corporate policies

We undertake a broad-based study of the effect of managerial risk-taking incentives on corporate financial policies and show that the risk-taking incentives of chief executive officers (CEOs) and chief financial officers (CFOs) significantly influence their firms’ financial policies. In particular, we find that CEOs’ risk-decreasing (-increasing) incentives are associated with lower (higher) leverage and higher (lower) cash balances. CFOs’ risk-decreasing (-increasing) incentives are associated with safer (riskier) debt-maturity choices and higher (lower) earnings-smoothing through accounting accruals. We exploit the stock option expensing regulation of 2004 to establish a causal link between managerial incentives and corporate policies. Our findings have important implications for optimal corporate compensation design.     

Debt, debt structure and corporate performance after unsuccessful takeovers: evidence from targets that remain independent

Significant increases in the level of target leverage have been previously documented following unsuccessful takeover attempts. This increased leverage may signal managerial commitment to improved performance, suggesting that corporate performance and leverage should be positively related. If, however, the increased leverage leads to further managerial entrenchment, then corporate performance and leverage should be negatively related. In this paper, we reexamine both motivations for the observed increase in leverage. Furthermore, we argue that changes in the composition of debt are also important, besides changes in the level of leverage. In particular, bank debt has frequently been assigned a proactive, beneficial monitoring role in the literature. Besides confirming the increase in the level of leverage, we also document increases in bank debt surrounding cancelled takeovers. As a result, we find a more complex relation between corporate performance and debt use: Overall, the relation between corporate performance and leverage is negative, as predicted by a dominant entrenchment effect. However, increases in bank debt reduce the adverse effect of the increase in the level of leverage.     

The determinants of debt maturity in Australian firms

We examine the determinants of debt maturity in the Australian capital market with the Top 400 firms listed on the Australian Securities Exchange for the period 1989–2006. We find that Australian firms not only exhibit a positive leverage–maturity relationship but also use short‐term debt to signal their high quality to the market. Our results are robust to different estimation methods that control for endogeneity and error‐dependence. We also find that ignoring the interaction between leverage and maturity can lead to erroneous conclusions about the support for the matching principle, the agency costs hypothesis and the transaction costs hypothesis.     

Determinants of corporate debt securities in the Euro area

Abstract

This study examines the macroeconomic determinants of corporate debt securities in the euro area. The financing costs, as approximated by the cost of debt securities vis-à-vis other sources of corporate finance, and financing needs, as captured by mergers and acquisitions and gross domestic product, are found to be significant determinants in the short and long run. The empirical results are also supportive of substitution between debt security and internal financing unrelated to cost of differentials in the short run and of differences in the determination of long- and short-term debt securities. These findings are robust across different samples and specifications.     

Board compensation practices and agency costs of debt

Extant theory and empirical evidence indicate that equity-based compensation can align the interests of managers with those of shareholders, but it has a side effect of aggravating bondholder-shareholder conflicts by increasing managers' risk-shifting incentives. Recent evidence confirms that extending equity-based compensation to outside directors also is effective in aligning their interests with those of shareholders, but its adverse effects on the debt-related agency problems are unknown. In this paper, we examine how stock and stock option compensation for outside directors affects corporate bond yields in the secondary market. Our results show that the greater the ratio of outside directors' stock and option compensation to total compensation, the lower the average yield spreads on the firms' outstanding bonds, with stock compensation having a larger impact than option compensation. Further, the effect of equity-based compensation on yield spreads is stronger for firms with lower-rated debt.     

Firm life cycle and debt maturity structure: evidence from China

This study examines the effect of firm life cycle on debt maturity structure (DMS) in China. We reveal that DMS is relatively low in the introduction and recession periods, while long‐term debt ratio of growth companies is high. Companies in booming industries need funds but have difficulty obtaining long‐term loans, whereas companies in recession can use more long‐term loans. The Chow test shows that DMS changed markedly before and after the new normal of China’s economy and the implementation of the ‘mass entrepreneurship and innovation campaign’. It is urgent to address sunset industries to improve the efficiency of resource allocation.     

The market for corporate control and the cost of debt

How do bondholders view the existence of an open market for corporate control? Between 1985 and 1991, 30 states in the U.S. enacted business combination (BC) laws, raising the cost of corporate takeovers. Relying on these exogenous events, we estimate the influence of the market for corporate control on the cost of debt. We identify different channels through which an open market for corporate control can benefit or harm bondholders: a reduction in managerial slack or the “quiet life,” resulting in higher profitability and firm value; a coinsurance effect, in which firms become less risky after being acquired; and an increasing leverage effect, in which bondholder wealth is expropriated through leverage-increasing takeovers. Consistent with the first two mechanisms, we find that the cost of debt rose after the passage of the BC laws; moreover, it rose sharply for firms in non-competitive industries, and for firms rated speculative-grade. In contrast, there is virtually no effect for firms in competitive industries, or firms rated investment-grade.     

Managerial ability and debt maturity

We examine whether and how managerial ability affects corporate debt maturity decisions. The demand for shorter maturity debt is expected to be higher in firms operated by high-ability managers, who possess the superior skills needed to anticipate firms’ economic prospects and communicate their private information, thereby alleviating information asymmetry and bolstering their reputation. We document that firms with high ability managers are associated with more short-term debt financing. The effect becomes stronger for firms facing severe information asymmetry problems, unconstrained firms or high quality firms. Supportive evidence is found from the analysis of short- and long-term debt issuance activity. Our findings remain robust to alternative measures of managerial ability and debt maturity choice, and are not driven by omitted variable bias, endogeneity concerns or industry group. Overall, we provide robust evidence that supports the signalling theory for debt maturity structure and contributes to the literatures on managerial ability.     

Conservative financial reporting, debt covenants, and the agency costs of debt

Considerable research has documented the role of debt covenants and conservative financial accounting in addressing agency conflicts between lenders and borrowers. Beatty, A., Weber, J., and Yu, J. [2008. Conservatism and debt. Journal of Accounting and Economics, forthcoming] document interesting, but mixed, findings on the relation between debt covenants and conservative accounting, and the extent to which the two contracting mechanisms act as substitutes or complements. In this paper, I discuss the economic roles of financial reporting, debt covenants, and conservatism within the debt contracting environment, and attempt to fit BWY's findings within this context.     

Corporate tax aggression and debt

We provide a tradeoff model of the capital structure that allows leverage to be a function of a firm’s choice of tax aggressiveness. The model’s testable implications are supported empirically. Debt use is inversely related to corporate tax aggression for most firms, and the relation is economically important. This substitution effect is especially evident for firms exhibiting high tax-shelter prediction scores. The effect attenuates for benign forms of tax avoidance and during the recent credit crisis period. For the most profitable firms, debt and tax aggression are complements. Our results extend the empirical findings of Graham and Tucker (2006).     

Underwriting Syndicates and the Cost of Debt: Evidence from Chinese Corporate Bonds

This article examines the association between underwriting syndicates and the cost of debt based on a sample of Chinese corporate bonds during 2007–2013. We find strong evidence that there is a negative relationship between forming underwriting syndicates and the cost of debt. The cost of bonds is more likely to decrease when the syndicate has more members—specifically, more joint managers. Additionally, by measuring the information asymmetry using several methods, we observe that this negative relationship is more pronounced when the information asymmetry between issuers and bond investors is more serious. The above results are robust after controlling for the potential endogeneity by constructing instrumental variables based on the unique setting of China’s corporate bond market.     

Time-varying managerial overconfidence and corporate debt maturity structure

We examine the impact of managerial overconfidence on corporate debt maturity. We build upon the argument that managerial overconfidence is likely to mitigate the underinvestment problem, which is often the major concern for long-term debt investors. Within this context, we hypothesise that managerial overconfidence increases debt maturity. Our empirical evidence, based on time-varying measures of overconfidence derived from computational linguistic analysis and directors’ dealings in their own companies’ shares, supports this hypothesis. Specifically, we find that the changes in both first person singular pronouns and optimistic tone are positively related to the change in debt maturity. Moreover, we find that the insider trading-based overconfidence of CEO, who is most likely to influence investment decision and thus the underinvestment problem, has a stronger impact on debt maturity than the overconfidence of other directors (e.g. CFO). Overall, our study provides initial evidence for a positive overconfidence-debt maturity relation via overconfidence mitigating the agency cost of long-term debt.     

Female directors on the board and cost of debt: evidence from Australia

We examine whether the presence of female board members has any impact on the cost of debt among Australian listed companies. We find that female presence on the board is negatively associated with the cost of debt. Most importantly, our findings support the argument of critical mass theory that a certain threshold of gender balance is required for enhancing board effectiveness. Our results are valid irrespective of alternate model specifications and endogeneity issues. Overall, the results provide support to the ASX Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendation for the appointment of female directors on corporate boards.