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Investment Timing, Liquidity, and Agency Costs of Debt

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  • Hirth, Stefan

    (Department of Business Studies, Aarhus School of Business)

  • Uhrig-Homburg, Marliese

    (Chair of Financial Engineering and Derivatives)

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of debt and liquidity on corporate investment in a continuous- time framework. We show that stockholder-bondholder agency conflicts cause investment thresholds to be U-shaped in leverage and decreasing in liquidity. In the absence of tax effects, we derive the optimal level of liquid funds that eliminates agency costs by implementing the first-best investment policy for a given capital structure. In a second step we generalize the framework by introducing a tax advantage of debt, and we show that an interior solution for liquidity and capital structure optimally trades off tax benefits and agency costs of debt

Suggested Citation

  • Hirth, Stefan & Uhrig-Homburg, Marliese, 2009. "Investment Timing, Liquidity, and Agency Costs of Debt," Finance Research Group Working Papers F-2009-04, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Business Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhb:aarbfi:2009-04
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    Cited by:

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    8. Shibata, Takashi & Nishihara, Michi, 2015. "Investment timing, debt structure, and financing constraints," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 241(2), pages 513-526.
    9. Luo, Pengfei & Song, Dandan & Chen, Biao, 2020. "Investment and financing for SMEs with bank-tax interaction and public-private partnerships," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 163-172.
    10. Kamoto, Shinsuke, 2023. "Investment decisions and financial leverage under a potential entry threat," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    11. Ebrahim, M. Shahid & Jaafar, Aziz & Omar, Fatma A. & Salleh, Murizah Osman, 2016. "Can Islamic injunctions indemnify the structural flaws of securitized debt?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 271-286.
    12. Shibata, Takashi & Nishihara, Michi, 2012. "Investment timing under debt issuance constraint," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 981-991.
    13. Takashi Shibata & Michi Nishihara, 2019. "Credit Spread And Liquidation Value-Based Debt Financing Constraint," International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance (IJTAF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(05), pages 1-27, August.
    14. Hirth, Stefan & Viswanatha, Marc, 2011. "Financing constraints, cash-flow risk, and corporate investment," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 1496-1509.
    15. Koussis, Nicos & Martzoukos, Spiros H. & Trigeorgis, Lenos, 2017. "Corporate liquidity and dividend policy under uncertainty," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 200-214.
    16. Abubakr Saeed & Yacine Belghitar & Ephraim Clark, 2017. "Political connections and firm operational efficiencies: evidence from a developing country," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 191-224, January.
    17. Shibata, Takashi & Nishihara, Michi, 2018. "Investment timing, reversibility, and financing constraints," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 771-796.
    18. Wahyudi, Imam, 2012. "Environmental Dynamic, Business Strategy, and Financial Performance: An Empirical Study of Indonesian Property and Real Estate Industry," MPRA Paper 59717, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 08 Apr 2013.
    19. Sanyal, Paroma & Bulan, Laarni T., 2011. "Regulatory risk, market uncertainties, and firm financing choices: Evidence from U.S. Electricity Market Restructuring," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 248-268, June.
    20. Abdelnour Joseph & Aubert Nicolas & Campa Domenico, 2022. "Does employee ownership decrease agency costs? Evidence from French listed companies [L'actionnariat salarié réduit-il les coûts d'agence? Le cas des entreprises françaises cotées]," Post-Print hal-03723164, HAL.
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    22. Koussis, Nicos & Martzoukos, Spiros H., 2022. "Credit line pricing under heterogeneous risk beliefs," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).

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    Keywords

    investment timing; liquidity; agency costs of debt; capital structure; real options;
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