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Presidential Address: Collateral and Commitment

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  • PETER M. DEMARZO

Abstract

Optimal dynamic capital structure choice is fundamentally a problem of commitment. In a standard trade‐off setting with shareholder‐debtholder agency conflicts, full commitment counterfactually predicts the firm would rely almost exclusively on debt financing. Conversely, absent commitment a Modigliani‐Miller‐like value irrelevance and policy indeterminacy result holds. Thus, the content of dynamic trade‐off theory must depend on the commitment technology. In this context, collateral is valuable as a low‐cost commitment device. Because ex ante optimal commitments are likely to be suboptimal ex post, observed capital structure dynamics will exhibit hysteresis and depart significantly from standard predictions.

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  • Peter M. Demarzo, 2019. "Presidential Address: Collateral and Commitment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(4), pages 1587-1619, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jfinan:v:74:y:2019:i:4:p:1587-1619
    DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12782
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    Cited by:

    1. Bernhardt, Dan & Koufopoulos, Kostas & Trigilia, Giulio, 2021. "The pitfalls of pledgeable cash flows : soft budget constraints, zombie lending and under-investment," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1327, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    2. Erica Jiang & Gregor Matvos & Tomasz Piskorski & Amit Seru, 2020. "Banking without Deposits: Evidence from Shadow Bank Call Reports," NBER Working Papers 26903, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Chen, Zhiyao & Hackbarth, Dirk & Strebulaev, Ilya A., 2022. "A unified model of distress risk puzzles," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 357-384.
    4. Chang, Jin-Wook, 2021. "Contagion in Debt and Collateral Markets," MPRA Paper 111131, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Jesse Perla & Carolin Pflueger & Michal Szkup, 2020. "Doubling Down on Debt: Limited Liability as a Financial Friction," NBER Working Papers 27747, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Andrea Gamba & Alessio Saretto, 2023. "Debt Maturity and Commitment on Firm Policies," Working Papers 2303, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    7. Campello, Murillo & Connolly, Robert A. & Kankanhalli, Gaurav & Steiner, Eva, 2022. "Do real estate values boost corporate borrowing? Evidence from contract-level data," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 611-644.
    8. Cong, Lin William & Li, Ye & Wang, Neng, 2022. "Token-based platform finance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 972-991.
    9. Ranjeet Singh & Yogesh Chauhan & Nemiraja Jadiyappa, 2023. "Does an effective bankruptcy reform increases collateralized borrowing? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in India," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 74-86, April.
    10. Amir Kermani & Yueran Ma, 2020. "Two Tales of Debt," NBER Working Papers 27641, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Michi NISHIHARA & Takashi SHIBATA, 2023. "Optimal capital structure with earnings above a floor," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 23-09, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    12. Benzoni, Luca & Garlappi, Lorenzo & Goldstein, Robert S. & Ying, Chao, 2022. "Debt dynamics with fixed issuance costs," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 385-402.
    13. Luca Benzoni & Lorenzo Garlappi & Robert S. Goldstein & Julien Hugonnier & Chao Ying, 2020. "Optimal Debt Dynamics, Issuance Costs, and Commitment," Working Paper Series WP-2020-20, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    14. Luca Benzoni & Lorenzo Garlappi & Robert Goldstein, 2023. "Incomplete Information, Debt Issuance, and the Term Structure of Credit Spreads," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(7), pages 4331-4352, July.
    15. Patrick Bolton & Ye Li & Neng Wang & Jinqiang Yang, 2020. "Dynamic Banking and the Value of Deposits," NBER Working Papers 28298, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Bernhardt, Dan & Koufopoulos, Kostas & Trigilia, Giulio, 2021. "Profiting from the poor in competitive lending markets with adverse selection," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1328, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    17. Peter M. Demarzo & Zhiguo He, 2021. "Leverage Dynamics without Commitment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(3), pages 1195-1250, June.
    18. Li, Yuan & Yang, Jinqiang & Zhao, Siqi, 2022. "Present-biased government and sovereign debt dynamics," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    19. Chodorow-Reich, Gabriel & Darmouni, Olivier & Luck, Stephan & Plosser, Matthew, 2022. "Bank liquidity provision across the firm size distribution," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 908-932.
    20. Efraim Benmelech & Nitish Kumar & Raghuram Rajan, 2020. "The Decline of Secured Debt," NBER Working Papers 26637, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Shilin Li & Jinqiang Yang & Siqi Zhao, 2022. "Robust leverage dynamics without commitment," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 74(2), pages 643-679, September.

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