This paper studies the joint effect of borrowing and short-sale constraints under heterogeneous beliefs and risk aversions. Although the constraints never simultaneously bind in equilibrium, interesting economics emerge in the anticipatory effects of potentially future binding constraints. In particular, the risk-free rate and Sharpe ratio experience endogenous jumps at a critical state, where two equilibria coexist. Moreover, a short-sale ban can lead to a lower stock price and higher volatility depending on the relative tightness between the constraints, and tightening the borrowing constraint during a short-sale ban can also make returns more volatile.

We present a new dynamic bank run model for liquidity risk where a financial institution finances its risky assets by a mixture of short- and long-term debt. The financial institution is exposed to insolvency risk at any time until maturity and to illiquidity risk at a finite number of rollover dates. We compute both insolvency and illiquidity default probabilities in this multiperiod setting using a structural credit risk model approach. Firesale rates can be determined endogenously as expected debt value over current asset value. Numerical results illustrate the impact of various input parameters on the default probabilities.

We examine how lenders design contracts to account for transitory and permanent cash flow shocks facing borrowers. We find that volatile transitory cash flow shocks are associated with fewer liquidity covenants, indicating financial flexibility that enables firms to survive liquidity crunches. The opposite is true for volatile permanent cash flow, suggesting that borrowers’ economic fundamentals are important credit risk factors. Subsequent analyses show that borrowers exposed to transitory (permanent) shocks face less (more) severe credit consequences following poor performance. Overall, we show that transitory and permanent cash flow shocks have significant and opposite effects on debt contract covenant design.