Debtor-in-possession financing

Several recent papers have documented the benefits of debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing in the restructuring of firms in Chapter 11. However, the view on benefits is not unanimous and some legal scholars have raised doubts about DIP financing's effects on debt-holders and the possibility of expropriative wealth transfers. In this paper we address this issue by analyzing both stock and bond price data for a comprehensive sample of DIP loans and find significant positive abnormal stock and bond returns at the announcement of DIP loans. Also, we do not find evidence of wealth transfers from junior to senior debt-holders. Further, we examine the DIP loan process in detail and we document important institutional features of DIP loans such as maturity, covenants, fees and interest charges. We find evidence of intense monitoring using covenants. We also find higher fees and charges associated with DIP loans. We argue that overall the results are consistent with the information processing role of financial intermediaries.     

Efficient markets and Bayes’ rule

Summary. A series of financial anomalies motivated the development of new theories that modify the rational expectations ideal. Two possibilities have been systematically explored. The literature on behavioral finance relaxes the assumption that agents form beliefs according to the laws of probability and assume, instead, that simpler heuristic rules are used. Another stream of the literature assumes that agents process information according to Bayes rule, but do not posses sufficient information to know the true data generating process. In this paper, Bayesian and Behavioral agents coexist and trade in a standard dynamic asset pricing model. A long-standing conjecture is demonstrated. It is shown that, under suitable assumptions, Bayesian agents drive Behavioral, non-Bayesian agents out of the market. Hence, asset prices are eventually determined under the Bayesian paradigm.Received: 3 June 2004, Revised: 17 September 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: D83.Preliminary versions have circulated under the titles Markets Favor Bayesian Models and Market Selection of Empirical Models under Limited Information. I thank Larry Blume, David Easley, Larry Epstein, Armando Gomes, Bruce Hansen, Lars Hansen, Richard Kihlstrom, Grace Koo, George Mailath, Werner Ploberger, Andrew Postlewaite and Shakeeb Khan for useful comments. I also thank participants at the NBER GE meetings, Evolutionary Finance conference in Zurich, Latin American Meetings of the Econometric Society, Stanford Institute for Theoretical Economics, the Instituto de Matematica Pura e Aplicada, the theory seminar at Brown, Chicago, Harvard-MIT, Minnesota, Penn and Wisconsin. I gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the National Science Foundation Grant SES 0109650.     

Perpetual youth and endogenous labor supply: A problem and a possible solution

In the “perpetual youth” overlapping-generations model of Blanchard and Yaari, if leisure is a “normal” good then some agents will have negative labor supply. We suggest a solution to this problem by using a modified version of Greenwood, Hercowitz and Huffman’s utility function. The modification incorporates real money balances, so that the model may be used to analyze monetary as well as fiscal policy. In a Walrasian version of the economy, we show that increased government debt and increased government spending raise the interest rate and lower output, while an open-market operation to increase the money supply lowers the interest rate and raises output.     

Wealth and sustainable development: the role of David Pearce

Green net national product was thought to be one way of measuring sustainable income. However, David Pearce understood that a better measure of sustainable development was to look at what a generation is leaving in form of capital assets to later generations. In this article, his arguments and insights are highlighted against recent theoretical advances.     

城镇居民金融资产与不动产财富效应的比较分析

城镇居民两种资产的财富效应呈现三个特点:一是住房资产的财富效应大于金融资产的财富效应;二是两种资产的财富效应差别不大;三是两种资产的财富效应较微弱。这表明:第一,住房对消费具有一定的支撑作用;第二,金融资产增值性不强和股市的波动限制财富效应的发挥;第三,较强的流动性约束制约住房资产的财富效应;第四,消费的过度敏感性使资产财富效应微弱。为了通过财富效应来促进消费,必须维持股市和房地产市场稳定的预期,大力发展金融市场,抑制住房价格的过快增长并促进住房市场平稳发展。     

上市公司控制权转移的财富效应分析

上市公司控制权的转移会改变投资者对目标公司的预期,从而引起目标公司股价的变化,进而使得目标公司股东的财富发生变化。本文采用事件研究法,分行业对2002年我国资本市场上第一大股东发生变更的目标方公司股东财富进行了实证研究。结果表明:对于整个资本市场而言,控制权转移能为目标公司带来显著的财富增加;而对于不同行业控制权转移的财富效应存在着较大的差别,只有原材料企业在公告日前可以获得显著的正财富效应,而工业企业和消费企业的财富效应并不明显。     

持续发展中代际财富转移简单模型

代际均衡发展是持续发展论的主要内容之一，其中代际财富转移和贴现率应用是其核心内容。本文探讨了一个代际财富转移的简单模型，并采用人们熟悉的柯布──道格拉斯函数形式表达。模型的敏感因素为利息率、工资和自然资源价格，并且是由代际间的跨代收入分配决定的。贴现率等于同期利息率，其水平是变动的。     

The poor are twice cursed: Wealth inequality and inefficient credit market

This paper investigates the role of unobservable wealth differences on credit market equilibrium, given there is also asymmetric information concerning effort preferences and choices. In equilibrium, poor but able entrepreneurs may subsidise the rich and incompetent or be excluded. As a result, investment may exceed or fall short of the optimal level. Low inequality may deliver conditions for perfect screening and an efficient level of investment. The equilibrium with cross subsidisation is consistent with otherwise puzzling empirical observations.     

Adaptive learning and distributional dynamics in an incomplete markets model

Recent research shows that several DSGE models provide a closer fit to the data under adaptive learning. This paper extends this research by introducing adaptive learning in the model of Krusell and Smith (1998) with uninsurable idiosyncratic risks and aggregate uncertainty. A first contribution of this paper establishes that the equilibrium of this framework is stable under least-squares learning. The second contribution consists of showing that bounded rationality enhances the ability of this model to match the distribution of income in the US. Learning increases significantly the Gini coefficients because of the opposite effects on consumption of the capital-rich and of the capital-poor agent. The third contribution is an empirical exercise that shows that learning can account for increases in the income Gini coefficient of up to 25% in a period of 28 years. Overall, these findings suggest that adaptive learning has important distributional repercussions in this class of models.     

ADAM SMITH AND THE ROLE OF THE METAPHOR OF AN INVISIBLE HAND

Daniel Klein and Brandon Lucas's ‘In a Word or Two, Placed in the Middle: The Invisible Hand in Smith's Tomes’, following a vague hint by Peter Minowitz (2004) , offers original physical evidence that Smith ‘deliberately placed the phrase “led by an invisible hand”– at the physical centre of both his masterworks’. Further, it suggests that the invisible‐hand paragraphs are a response to Rousseau (1755 ); and that in ‘numerous and rich ways’, centrality holds ‘special and positive significance in Smith's thought’. This paper acknowledges the physical centrality of the invisible‐hand metaphor, but questions whether centrality alone gives weight to wider claims that the ‘invisible hand’ was Smith's ‘central idea’. It draws upon Smith's Rhetoric Lectures (1763), and argues that the invisible‐hand paragraphs in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations identify the actual objects of the invisible‐hand metaphor. This paper insists that Adam Smith is the most reliable source for revealing what he meant. In contrast, most modern attributions of special meaning to Adam Smith's use of the metaphor ignore Smith's teaching on the use of metaphors and, instead, make numerous, and often mutually exclusive, claims that Smith had a ‘doctrine’ of ‘an invisible‐hand’.