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.     

The market’s view on the probability of banking sector failure: cross-country comparisons

Hall and Miles (1990) suggest an approach of estimating default probabilities of banks using stock market information, and in this paper we apply an aggregated version of their approach to banking sectors around the world in both developed and emerging economies. We study the market’s assessment of the probability of systemic banking crises world wide over the last decade, including the Asian crisis 1997–1998. In addition, we investigate whether there is a relationship between the failure probability and institutional features of the actual banking sector. The quality of governance and the degree of law and order in a country is found to be significantly negatively related to the market based failure probabilities as is an explicit deposit insurance during periods of crisis.     

上市公司资本结构微观决定因素分析

我国上市公司资本结构的突出特点是偏好股权资本,内源融资和债权融资的比重偏低,这有悖于经典的资本结构理论。本文分析了决定上市公司资本结构的微观因素,并提出了优化上市公司资本结构的建议。     

利率风险与债务期限结构的正反馈效应分析

本文在总结以前学者有关债务期限结构分析的基础上,提出了债务期限结构与利率波动之间可能存在正反馈机制。通过对经筛选的我国上市企业面板数据的实证分析,发现银行间同业拆借利率可以较好地反映企业债务期限结构的变化。而分行业的实证分析则表明,利率波动加剧会使绝大多数行业的短期债务比例降低,呈现显著负相关关系。但现阶段我国的利率形成受企业债务期限结构变化的影响不明显,长短期的面板Granger因果检验无法通过。最后,本文从利率风险及利率期限结构的角度对我国上市公司特殊的债务结构给出了新的解释。     

关于“债转股”的几点法律思考

政策性债转股包括国有商业银行与金融资产管理公司之间的债权转让和金融资产管理公司与国有企业间以债权换股权这两个法律关系,现阶段实行债转股可对国有企业产生诸如促进企业产权制度改革,减轻企业财务负担,优化企业法人治理结构及促使资产变现等方面的积极影响.但在实践过程中也存在着很多障碍和问题,从而限制了债转股功能的发挥.尽管如此,只要政府能给予支持,立法上能提供有效保护,债转股必然可以给东北国有企业带来一片生机.     

Forecasting recovery rates on non-performing loans with machine learning

We compare the performance of a wide set of regression techniques and machine-learning algorithms for predicting recovery rates on non-performing loans, using a private database from a European debt collection agency. We find that rule-based algorithms such as Cubist, boosted trees, and random forests perform significantly better than other approaches. In addition to loan contract specificities, predictors that refer to the bank recovery process — prior to the portfolio’s sale to a debt collector — are also shown to enhance forecasting performance. These variables, derived from the time series of contacts to defaulted clients and client reimbursements to the bank, help all algorithms better identify debtors with different repayment ability and/or commitment, and in general those with different recovery potential.     

Strategic freedom, constraint, and symmetry in one-period markets with cash and credit payment

Summary. In order to explain in a systematic way why certain combinations of market, financial, and legal structures may be intrinsic to certain capabilities to exchange real goods, we introduce criteria for abstracting the qualitative functions of markets. The criteria involve the number of strategic freedoms the combined institutions, considered as formalized strategic games, present to traders, the constraints they impose, and the symmetry with which those constraints are applied to the traders. We pay particular attention to what is required to make these strategic market games well-defined, and to make various solutions computable by the agents within the bounds on information and control they are assumed to have. As an application of these criteria, we present a complete taxonomy of the minimal one-period exchange economies with symmetric information and inside money. A natural hierarchy of market forms is observed to emerge, in which institutionally simpler markets are often found to be more suitable to fewer and less-diversified traders, while the institutionally richer markets only become functional as the size and diversity of their users gets large.Received: 5 June 2003, Revised: 18 November 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: C7, G10, G20, L10, D40, D50. Correspondence to: Eric SmithEric Smith, Martin Shubik: We are grateful to Lloyd Shapley, Duncan Foley, and Doyne Farmer for discussions in the course of this work.     

中国上市公司负债比率偏低的影响因素分析

本文在国外资本结构理论的基础上，将西方公司与中国公司的资本结构特点进行比较，从内因和外因两个方面解释了中国上市公司负债比率偏低的现象。     

The minimum variance hedge and the bankruptcy risk of the firm

In this paper, we analyze the influence of hedging with forward contracts on the firm's probability of bankruptcy (POB). The minimization of this probability can serve as a substitute for the maximization of shareholders' wealth. It is shown that the popular minimum variance hedge is generally neither necessary nor sufficient for the minimization of the firm's POB. Moreover, our model suggests a correction of the widespread view that a reduction in the variance of the future value of the firm is inevitably accompanied by a reduction in its default risk. We derive an analytical solution for the variance-minimizing hedge ratio of a firm exposed to both input and output price uncertainty that takes into account the issue of correlation. Based on this solution, we provide a graphical analysis to prove our claim that there is a fundamental difference between hedging policies focused on bankruptcy risk and those following conventional wisdom even if positive correlation constitutes a “natural” hedge.     

Default- and call-adjusted duration for corporate bonds

Call and default can potentially alter the timing and amounts of promised cashflows for callable, corporate bonds. While prior research has indicated the theoretical importance of adjusting Macaulay duration for the impacts of default and call, the question of their relative impact remains a matter of debate [The High Yield Debt Market, Dow Jones Irwin, New York, 1990, p. 18; J. Finan. 53 (1998) 2225]. We develop a theoretical analysis incorporating both default and call effects on duration and test its implications employing a previously unexplored data base of Canadian, investment grade, corporate bond indices containing an unusual provision making it possible to identify callable and noncallable indices.