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Journal of Finance Vol. 69 No. 6 2014

Investment‐Based Corporate Bond Pricing

Lars-Alexander Kuehn1; Lukas Schmid2

1 Carnegie Mellon University · 2 Chapman University

Abstract

A standard assumption of structural models of default is that firms' assets evolve exogenously. In this paper, we examine the importance of accounting for investment options in models of credit risk. In the presence of financing and investment frictions, firm‐level variables that proxy for asset composition are significant determinants of credit spreads beyond leverage and asset volatility, because they capture the systematic risk of firms' assets. Cross‐sectional studies of credit spreads that fail to control for the interdependence of leverage and investment decisions are unlikely to be very informative. Such frictions also give rise to a realistic term structure of credit spreads in a production economy.

DOI
10.1111/jofi.12204
Volume
69
Issue
6
Pages
2741-2776
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref openalex

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