This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data


[ Papers | Articles | Software | Books | Chapters | Authors | Institutions | JEL Classification | NEP reports | Search | New papers by email | Author registration | Rankings | Volunteers | FAQ | Blog | Help! ]

The Effect of Capital Structure When Expected Agency Costs are Extreme

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
Campbell R. Harvey
Karl V. Lins
Andrew H. Roper

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Abstract

We provide new evidence that debt creates shareholder value for firms that face agency costs. Our tests are unique in two respects. First, we focus on a sample of firms with potentially extreme agency problems. We study emerging market firms where the routine use of pyramid ownership structures provides an acute separation of management cash flow rights and control rights. Second, we argue that not all debt is the same. Using new data on global debt issuance, we find that the type of debt that positively impacts shareholder value is the type that closely monitors management. This combination of a sample of firms with extreme expected agency problems and detailed information on the different types of debt allows us to construct powerful tests of whether debt can mitigate the effects of agency and information problems. Among other results, we find that the abnormal returns resulting from syndicated term loans (which provide monitoring) are significantly related to the extent of the separation of ownership and control. Our results are consistent with the idea that debt creates value because it reduces the agency costs associated with overinvestment.

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w8452.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function:
Download Restriction: Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html.

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 8452.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length:
Date of creation: Sep 2001
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8452

Note: AP
Contact details of provider:
Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Phone: 617-868-3900
Email:
Web page: http://www.nber.org
More information through EDIRC

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().

Related research
Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Capital and Ownership Structure
G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Diamond, Douglas W, 1991. "Monitoring and Reputation: The Choice between Bank Loans and Directly Placed Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(4), pages 689-721, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Stijn Claessens & Simeon Djankov & Joseph P. H. Fan & Larry H. P. Lang, 2002. "Disentangling the Incentive and Entrenchment Effects of Large Shareholdings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(6), pages 2741-2771, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-29, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. James, Christopher, 1987. "Some evidence on the uniqueness of bank loans," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 217-235, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Diamond, Douglas W, 1991. "Debt Maturity Structure and Liquidity Risk," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 106(3), pages 709-37, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silane & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1996. "Law and Finance," NBER Working Papers 5661, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  7. Scholes, Myron & Williams, Joseph, 1977. "Estimating betas from nonsynchronous data," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 309-327, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Pomerleano, Michael, 1998. "The East Asia crisis and corporate finances : the untold micro story," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1990, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  9. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 1994. "What Do We Know About Capital Structure? Some Evidence from International Data," NBER Working Papers 4875, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  10. Lummer, Scott L. & McConnell, John J., 1989. "Further evidence on the bank lending process and the capital-market response to bank loan agreements," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 99-122, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Diamond, Douglas W, 1984. "Financial Intermediation and Delegated Monitoring," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(3), pages 393-414, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Leland, Hayne E & Pyle, David H, 1977. "Informational Asymmetries, Financial Structure, and Financial Intermediation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(2), pages 371-87, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  13. McConnell, John J. & Servaes, Henri, 1990. "Additional evidence on equity ownership and corporate value," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 595-612, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Jensen, Michael C, 1993. " The Modern Industrial Revolution, Exit, and the Failure of Internal Control Systems," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(3), pages 831-80, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  15. Claessens, Stijn & Djankov, Simeon & Lang, Larry H. P., 2000. "The separation of ownership and control in East Asian Corporations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 81-112. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. " A Survey of Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 737-83, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  17. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-38, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Kim, Yong Cheol & Stulz, ReneM., 1988. "The Eurobond market and corporate financial policy : A test of the clientele hypothesis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 189-205, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Stephen R. Foerster & G. Andrew Karolyi, 1999. "The Effects of Market Segmentation and Investor Recognition on Asset Prices: Evidence from Foreign Stocks Listing in the United States," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(3), pages 981-1013, 06. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Cantillo, Miguel & Wright, Julian, 2000. "How Do Firms Choose Their Lenders? An Empirical Investigation," Review of Financial Studies, Oxford University Press for Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(1), pages 155-89.
    Other versions:
  21. Mikkelson, Wayne H. & Partch, M. Megan, 1986. "Valuation effects of security offerings and the issuance process," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1-2), pages 31-60. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  22. Titman, Sheridan & Trueman, Brett, 1986. "Information quality and the valuation of new issues," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 159-172, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  23. Laurence Booth, 2001. "Capital Structures in Developing Countries," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 87-130, 02. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  24. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  25. Morck, Randall & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1988. "Management ownership and market valuation : An empirical analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 293-315, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  26. Flannery, Mark J, 1986. " Asymmetric Information and Risky Debt Maturity Choice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(1), pages 19-37, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  27. Merton, Robert C, 1987. " A Simple Model of Capital Market Equilibrium with Incomplete Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(3), pages 483-510, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  28. Stulz, ReneM., 1990. "Managerial discretion and optimal financing policies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 3-27, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  29. Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1995. "Debt and Seniority: An Analysis of the Role of Hard Claims in Constraining Management," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 567-85, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  30. Barclay, Michael J & Smith, Clifford W, Jr, 1995. " The Maturity Structure of Corporate Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(2), pages 609-31, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  31. Karl Lins & Henri Servaes, 1999. "International Evidence on the Value of Corporate Diversification," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2215-2239, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  32. McConnell, John J. & Servaes, Henri, 1995. "Equity ownership and the two faces of debt," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 131-157, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  33. Campbell, John Y, 1996. "Understanding Risk and Return," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(2), pages 298-345, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Christian Leuz & Karl V. Lins & Francis E. Warnock, 2006. "Do Foreigners Invest Less in Poorly Governed Firms?," NBER Working Papers 12222, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Jangkoo Kang & Joon-Seok Kim, 2006. "Private benefits of control and firm leverage: An analysis of Korean firms," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 439-463, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Durnev, Art & Fauver, Larry, 2008. "Stealing from Thieves: Firm Governance and Performance when States are Predatory," CEI Working Paper Series 2008-12, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University. [Downloadable!]
  4. Karl V. Lins & Francis E. Warnock, 2004. "Corporate governance and the shareholder base," International Finance Discussion Papers 816, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  5. Bris, Arturo & Koskinen, Yrjö & Nilsson, Mattias, 2003. "The Euro and Corporate Valuations," Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 525, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 06 Dec 2003. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Suhaila , Mat Kila & Wan Mahmood, Wan Mansor, 2008. "Capital Structure and Firm Characteristics: Some Evidence from Malaysian Companies," MPRA Paper 14616, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  7. Jayati Sarkar & Subrata Sarkar, 2005. "Debt and corporate governance in emerging economies: Evidence from India," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2005-007, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India. [Downloadable!]
  8. Andreas Stephan & Oleksandr Talavera & Andriy Tsapin, 2008. "Corporate Debt Maturity Choice in Transition Financial Markets," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 784, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  9. Yilmaz Guney & Aydin Ozkan, 2005. "New insights on the importance of agency costs for corporate debt maturity decisions," Applied Financial Economics Letters, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 1(4), pages 233-238, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? About 1000 journals are listed on RePEc.

This page was last updated on 2009-12-14.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.