A Fast Literature Search Engine based on top-quality journals, by Dr. Mingze Gao.
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Results 48 resources
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We study how firms respond to an unexpected demand shock, exploiting the 2006 boycott of Danish products after publication of Muhammad caricatures. On average, affected firms lose the majority of their exports to Muslim countries and experience a significant decrease in total sales. However, firms with low financial leverage redirect sales to new and existing product-destination markets in non-Muslim countries, which allows them to fully offset their losses. In contrast, high-leverage firms do not enter new markets and instead actively downsize. Our results highlight the importance of financial flexibility in times of crisis, consistent with declarations of practitioners.
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We present a spatial econometrics framework for estimating peer effects in capital structure. This approach exploits the heterogeneous and intransitive nature of peer networks to identify economically informative structural coefficients. In models of leverage levels, we detect significant peer-effect leverage coefficients that are on the order of 0.20, indicating a moderate but substantive level of strategic complementarity in capital structure decisions. We argue that prior estimates in the literature substantially overstate the magnitude of the underlying relation. Our evidence is robust to a wide variety of model modifications and supports the hypothesis that leverage is an important strategic choice variable.
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We show that firms with longer debt maturities earn risk premia not explained by unconditional factors. Embedding dynamic capital structure choices in an asset-pricing framework where the market price of risk evolves with the business cycle, we find that firms with long-term debt exhibit more countercyclical leverage. The induced covariance between betas and the market price of risk generates a maturity premium similar in size to our empirical estimate of 0.21% per month. We also provide direct evidence for the model mechanism and confirm that the maturity premium is consistent with observed leverage dynamics of long- and short-maturity firms.
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We document several facts about corporate debt maturity: (1) debt maturity is pro-cyclical, (2) higher-beta firms tend to have longer maturity, and (3) shorter maturity amplifies the sensitivity of credit spreads to aggregate shocks. We present a dynamic capital structure model that explains these facts. In the model, leverage and maturity choices are interdependent, which reflect the tradeoffs of liquidity discounts of long-term debt, repayment risks of short-term debt, and the benefit of short-term debt as a commitment device for timely leverage adjustments. Additionally, the model helps quantify the effects of maturity dynamics on the term structure of credit spreads.
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We present a general equilibrium model of banks’ optimal capital structure where bankruptcy is costly and investors have heterogeneous endowments and incur a cost for participating in equity markets. We show that, besides its social benefits, capital regulation benefits bank shareholders when it resolves fire sales externalities but not when it acts as a tax on bank profits such as when used to control excessive leverage induced by deposit insurance. Furthermore, capital regulation widens the gap between the returns to bank shareholders and depositors and may reduce investments in projects in favor of storage.
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We model a firm’s optimal capital structure decision in a framework in which it may later choose to enter either Chapter 11 reorganization or Chapter 7 liquidation. Creditors anticipate equityholders’ ex-post reorganization incentives and price them into the ex-ante credit spreads. Using a realistic dynamic bargaining model of reorganization, we show that the off-equilibrium threat of costly renegotiation can lead to lower leverage, even with liquidation in equilibrium. If reorganization is less efficient than liquidation, the added option of reorganization can actually make equityholders worse off ex-ante, even when they liquidate on the equilibrium path.
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We empirically investigate the impact of government debt on corporate financing decisions in an international setting. We show a negative relation between government debt and corporate leverage using data on 40 countries between 1990–2014. This negative relation is stronger for government debt that is financed domestically, for firms that are larger and more profitable, and in countries with more developed equity markets. To address potential endogeneity concerns, we use an instrumental variable approach based on military spending and a quasi-natural experiment based on the introduction of the Euro currency. Our findings suggest that government debt crowds out corporate debt.
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This paper determines the optimal ownership share held by a unit into a second unit when both face a tax-bankruptcy trade-off. Full ownership is optimal when the first unit has positive debt, because dividends help avoid its default. Positive debt is, in turn, optimal when its corporate tax rate exceeds a threshold, and/or thin capitalization rules place an upper limit on the debt level in the second unit, and/or the Volcker Rule bans bailout transfers to the second unit. Full ownership is no longer optimal only if there is a tax on intercorporate dividend. This theory rationalizes observations on multinationals, financial conglomerates, and family groups.
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The frequency with which firms adjust output prices helps explain persistent differences in capital structure across firms. Unconditionally, the most flexible-price firms have a 19% higher long-term leverage ratio than the most sticky-price firms, controlling for known determinants of capital structure. Sticky-price firms increased leverage more than flexible-price firms following the staggered implementation of bank deregulation across states and over time, which we use in a difference-in-differences strategy. Firms’ frequency of price adjustment did not change around the deregulation.
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We develop a model of the joint capital structure decisions of banks and their borrowers. Bank leverage of 85% or higher emerges because bank seniority both dramatically reduces bank asset volatility and incentivizes risk-taking by producing a skewed return distribution. Nonfinancial firms choose low leverage to protect their banks, presenting a partial resolution to the low-leverage puzzle. Our setup naturally extends to include government actions as we model bank assets using a modified Basel framework. Deposit insurance and bailout expectations lead banks and borrowers to take on more risk. Capital regulation lowers bank leverage but can increase bank risk due to a compensating increase in borrower leverage. Despite this, doubling current capital requirements reduces bank default risk by up to 90%, with only a small increase in loan interest rates.
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Journals
Topic
- Capital Structure
- CEO (4)
- Mergers and Acquisitions (2)
- Bond (2)
Resource type
- Journal Article (48)