Risk-shifting incentives and signalling through corporate capital structure

Article Abstract:

This paper examines optimal corporate financing arrangements under asymmetric information for different patterns of temporal resolution of uncertainty in the underlying technology. An agency problem, a signalling problem and an agency-signalling problem arise as special cases. The associated informational equilibria and the optimal financing arrangements are characterized and compared. In the agency-signalling equilibrium the private information of corporate insiders at the time of financing is signalled through capital structure choices which deviate optimally from agency-cost minimizing financing arrangements, which in turn induce risk-shifting incentives in the investment policy. In the pure signaling case the equilibrium is characterized by direct contractual precommitments to implement investment policies which are riskier than pareto-optimal levels. Empirical implications for debt covenants and the announcement effect of investment policies and leverage increasing transactions on existing stock and bond prices are explicitly derived. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Finance, Corporations, Corporate finance

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Tax shields, sample-selection bias, and the information content of conversion-forcing bond calls

Article Abstract:

The information content of conversion-forcing bond calls depends on the after-tax cash flow to bondholders. If the dividend after conversion exceeds the after-tax coupon but is less than the before-tax coupon, the call reveals unanticipated decreases in dividends and/or earnings that reduce the tax shield from interest payments. In contrast, a call when the dividend is less than the after-tax coupon reveals the timing of an anticipated shift from exceptional firm-specific positive growth to the industry norm. Efforts to document properties of convertible calls are subject to sample-selection bias because calls are disproportionately associated with positive pre-call firm-specific growth. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Research, Evaluation, Options (Finance), Bonds, Bonds (Securities), Tax shelters, Convertible bonds

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Growth opportunities and risk-taking by financial intermediaries

Article Abstract:

We show that growth opportunities which cannot be converted to cash under conditions of financial distress (Gz) are a critical determinant of an intermediary's choice of risk. Financial institutions in which Gz is a low proportion of total assets will be much more likely to engage in go-for-broke behavior. The model leads to a reevaluation of the effectiveness of several traditional remedies for dealing with banks that take excessive risks such as raising insurance premiums, intervening before capital is depleted, and restricting investment options, The model also has implications about a new approach to the examination of financial intermediaries. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Management, Financial institutions

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