Bankruptcy laws and debt renegotiation

This paper analyzes the effect of the toughness of bankruptcy law on the number of liquidations in a simple model of borrowing and lending with asymmetric information, where the creditor cannot credibly commit to liquidate the firm if the default occurs. In our setting we consider a bankruptcy law to be a one-dimensional variable that influences creditor's expectation value of collateral. We find that there is an interval of the bankruptcy law, where the number of liquidations decreases in the toughness of the bankruptcy law. We also find that if the liquidation costs are high, softer bankruptcy law is preferred.     

Extracting the information: espionage with double crossing

This paper addresses two very old issues in human society: espionage and double crossing. Our major conclusion points out that there will be a serious over rewarding problem in the direct mechanism due to double crossing in espionage, and a competitive mechanism with a relative performance regime can possibly mitigate the over rewarding problem and still extract the information.      

IT外包的投资、再谈判机制分析

本文从IT承包商(vendor)和客户(client)的角度考虑去设计最优契约。由于客户方的需要,或者是由于契约的不完全性导致契约经常需要再谈判,而且由于契约修改后的执行问题也可能引起法律诉讼,因此对于如何决定事前的投资、谈判利润分配和契约诉讼的赔偿都是一系列要解决的问题,本文正是根据这些问题的提出而逐步展开的。     

‘An Incomplete Contract Approach to Eurozone Fiscal Governance’ – Commitment vs. Flexibility

In this paper, we take an incomplete contract approach to Eurozone Fiscal Governance between the European Commission (EC) and any heavily debt member state, Greece in particular. Incomplete contract approach makes possible to put a long process of Eurozone Fiscal Governance into an extensive form game in which a renegotiation procedure is incorporated. We theoretically reveal the conflict of interests between the EC (Germany) and Greece over the Greek debt repayment plan proposed in 2015. We show that the Greek’s position is consistent with incomplete contract theory, but that the EC (Germany) does not allow the renegotiation for restructuring for growth-oriented debt repayment program proposed by the Greek government because the EC (Germany) judges that the commitment effect (on fiscal austerity) is greater than the flexibility one (pro-growth effect). This will undoubtedly provide a novel and interesting approach to Eurozone Fiscal Governance.     

Do Antitrust Laws Facilitate Collusion? Experimental Evidence on Costly Communication in Duopolies*

Bertrand supergames with non‐binding communication are used to study price formation and stability of collusive agreements on experimental duopoly markets. The experimental design consists of three treatments with different costs of communication: zero‐cost, low‐cost and high‐cost. Prices are found to be significantly higher when communication is costly. Moreover, costly communication decreases the number of messages, but more importantly, it enhances the stability of collusive agreements. McCutcheon (1997) presents an interesting application to antitrust policy by letting the cost of communication symbolize the presence of an antitrust law that prohibits firms from discussing prices. Although our experimental results do not support the mechanism of McCutcheon's (1997) argument, the findings point in the direction of her prediction that antitrust laws might work in the interest of firms.     

运营时滞、债务协商和可转债融资企业投资决策研究

在运营时滞的背景下,将债务协商机制引入到利用股权和可转债融资的上市企业,建立动态模型分析企业的投资问题。数值分析表明：在相同的运营时滞下,如果股东谈判能力较弱（强）,相比于破产清算,债务协商会加速（推迟）投资;项目首次投资成本和股东谈判能力会同时影响运营时滞与企业投资水平之间的关系。当首次投资成本低时,随着运营时滞增加,较强（弱）的股东谈判能力会推迟（加速）投资;当首次投资成本较高时,运营时滞增加会推迟投资,但股东谈判能力越强,推迟程度越小;债务协商可以提高实物期权价值,并且实物期权价值和股东谈判能力成正比,和运营时滞成反比。     

Market perceptions of discretionary accruals by debt renegotiating firms during economic downturn

This study addresses how a stock market prices earnings components around a sudden and severe economic downturn. In particular, the study examines the market valuation of discretionary accruals for debt renegotiating Malaysian firms during the Asian financial crisis. Our analysis shows that negative discretionary accruals for debt renegotiating firms are associated with higher market values of equity and are not related to the firms' future earnings. These findings are consistent with investors placing a positive value on the probability that negative accruals increase the likelihood that concessions can be extracted from lenders during renegotiation. In contrast, discretionary accruals for a control sample of non-debt renegotiating firms are not significantly associated with stock prices but are positively associated with future earnings.     

政府在社会博弈中的角色与作用——一个基于霍布斯、洛克理论的模型分析

文章基于霍布斯和洛克的理论框架,讨论了政府在社会博弈中的角色和作用,并且阐发了社会博弈中政府与公民所面临的策略选择及均衡结果的社会意义,尤其对于社会契约关系中退出机制的安排和由此引发的重新谈判问题进行了深入的思考,为进一步研究关于社会契约的治理及其结构性安排等问题奠定了基础.     

Implications of Debt Renegotiation for Optimal Bank Policy and Firm Behavior

This paper analyzes the problems associated with the renegotiation of debt contracts involving a bank (the lender) and a firm (the borrower) when the latter is operated by a risk averse manager. Firms undertake risky projects with loan capital borrowed from the bank. When a firm cannot pay off a loan it is technically bankrupt. Both the borrower and the lender may however experience a Pareto-improvement in their positions by renegotiating the loan. By renegotiating the terms of the debt the financially distressed firm can avoid the stigmatization of bankruptcy and the bank can avoid the costs of seizing the borrower's assets. However, our main finding is that, from the bank's point of view, renegotiating as a policy of recovering loan payments may be inefficient in practice because of false bankruptcy claims and moral hazard problems associated with exposure of the borrowing firm to the risk of default. We present a solution to the false bankruptcy claim problem that involves a mixe d strategy between asset seizure by the bank and debt renegotiation.     

How (Not) to Foster Innovations in Public Infrastructure Projects*

The government wants an infrastructure‐based public service to be provided. First, the infrastructure has to be built; subsequently, it has to be operated. Should the government bundle the building and operating tasks in a public–private partnership? Or should it choose traditional procurement (i.e., delegate the tasks to different firms)? Each task entails unobservable investments to come up with innovations. It turns out that, depending on the nature of the innovations, bundling can either stimulate or discourage investments. Moreover, we find that if renegotiation cannot be prevented, public–private partnerships might lead the government to deliberately opt for technologically inferior projects.