This article proposes a theory of investment fluctuations in which the source of the oscillating dynamics is an agency problem between financiers and entrepreneurs. In the model, investment decisions depend on entrepreneurs' initiative to select investment projects ex ante, and financiers' incentive to control entrepreneurs ex post. Too much control discourages entrepreneurial incentive to initiate new investment, whereas too little control jeopardizes its productivity. This initiative-control trade-off is capable of generating endogenous reversal of investment booms, induced by an ongoing deterioration of project profitability. Investment fluctuations may arise even though no external shocks hit the economy and agents are perfectly rational. The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]., Oxford University Press.

We show that the prospect of a debt renegotiation favorable to shareholders reduces the firm's equity risk. Equity beta and return volatility are lower in countries where the bankruptcy code favors debt renegotiations and for firms with more shareholder bargaining power relative to debt holders. These relations weaken as the country's insolvency procedure favors liquidations over renegotiations. In the limit, when debt contracts cannot be renegotiated, equity risk is independent of shareholders' incentives to default strategically. We argue that these findings support the hypothesis that the threat of strategic default can reduce the firm's equity risk.