The uniqueness of short-term collateralization
Abstract
The author finds evidence that lines of credit secured by accounts receivable are associated with business borrowers with a high risk of default. While an unsecured short-term loan is repaid from the borrower's future cash flow, a loan secured by accounts receivable (a unique form of"inside"collateral) is repaid from previously generated and observed sales (the borrower's trade credit terms to its customers). Consequently, lenders that secure accounts receivable are most concerned with the credit risk of the borrower's customers and the borrower's ability to continue to generate new sales. A stylizedtheoretical model demonstrates that the value of a secured line-of-credit loan in minimizing contracting costs is associated with the borrower's business risk and the quality of the borrower's customers. Empirical tests on a sample of publicly traded U.S. manufacturing firms find that firms with secured line of credit loans are observably riskier and have fewer expected growth opportunities. The author's findings suggest that observably riskier borrowers can borrow more on a secured than on an unsecured basis. The results highlight the important role of secured letters of credit in providing liquidity to risky, credit-constrained firms that might not have access to external financing through other channels.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. 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.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by The World Bank in its series Policy Research Working Paper Series with number 2544.Length:
Date of creation: 28 Feb 2001
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:2544
Contact details of provider:
Postal: 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433
Phone: (202) 477-1234
Email:
Web page: http://www.worldbank.org/
More information through EDIRC
Related research
Keywords: Banks&Banking Reform; Economic Adjustment and Lending; Economic Theory&Research; International Terrorism&Counterterrorism; Business in Development;References
References listed on IDEASPlease 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.:
- Oliver Hart & John Moore, 1995.
"A Theory of Debt Based on the Inalienability of Human Capital,"
NBER Working Papers
3906, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1994. "A Theory of Debt Based on the Inalienability of Human Capital," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(4), pages 841-79, November.
- Hart, O. & Moore, J., 1991. "A Theory of Debt Based on the Inalienability of Human Capital," Working papers 592, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
- Oliver Hart & John Moore, 1991. "A Theory of Debt Based on the Inalienability of Human Capital," STICERD - Theoretical Economics Paper Series 233, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
- Mark Carey & Mitch Post & Steven A. Sharpe, 1996.
"Does corporate lending by banks and finance companies differ? Evidence on specialization in private debt contracting,"
Finance and Economics Discussion Series
96-25, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
- Mark Carey & Mitch Post & Steven A. Sharpe, 1998. "Does Corporate Lending by Banks and Finance Companies Differ? Evidence on Specialization in Private Debt Contracting," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(3), pages 845-878, 06.
- Titman, Sheridan & Wessels, Roberto, 1988. " The Determinants of Capital Structure Choice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 43(1), pages 1-19, March.
- Boot, Arnoud W A & Thakor, Anjan V & Udell, Gregory F, 1991. "Secured Lending and Default Risk: Equilibrium Analysis, Policy Implications and Empirical Results," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(406), pages 458-72, May.
- Mark Gertler & Simon Gilchrist, 1991.
"Monetary Policy, Business Cycles and the Behavior of Small Manufacturing Firms,"
NBER Working Papers
3892, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1994. "Monetary Policy, Business Cycles, and the Behavior of Small Manufacturing Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(2), pages 309-40, May.
- Mark Gertler & Simon Gilchrist, 1993. "Monetary policy, business cycles and the behavior of small manufacturing firms," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 93-4, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
- Gertler, M. & Gilchrist, S., 1992. "Monetary Policy, Business Cycles and the Behavior of Small Manufacturing Firms," Working Papers 92-08, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
- Gertler, M. & Gilchrist, S., 1993. "Monetary Policy, Business Cycles and the Behavior of Small Manufacturing Firms," Working Papers 93-02, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
- Hart, O. & Moore, J., 1989.
"Default And Renegotiation: A Dynamic Model Of Debt,"
Working papers
520, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
- Oliver Hart & John Moore, 1998. "Default And Renegotiation: A Dynamic Model Of Debt," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-41, February.
- Oliver Hart & John Moore, 1997. "Default and Renegotiation: A Dynamic Model of Debt," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1792, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
- Oliver Hart & John Moore, 1997. "Default and Renegotiation: A Dynamic Model of Debt," NBER Working Papers 5907, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Oliver Hart & John Moore, 1997. "Default and Renegotiation: A Dynamic Model of Debt," STICERD - Theoretical Economics Paper Series 321, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
- Bolton, Patrick & Scharfstein, David S, 1990. "A Theory of Predation Based on Agency Problems in Financial Contracting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 93-106, March.
- Avery, Robert B. & Bostic, Raphael W. & Samolyk, Katherine A., 1998. "The role of personal wealth in small business finance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(6-8), pages 1019-1061, August.
- 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.
- Bester, Helmut, 1985. "Screening vs. Rationing in Credit Markets with Imperfect Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 850-55, September.
- Berger, Allen N. & Udell, Gregory F., 1990.
"Collateral, loan quality and bank risk,"
Journal of Monetary Economics,
Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 21-42, January.
- Allen N. Berger & Gregory F. Udell, 1988. "Collateral, loan quality, and bank risk," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 51, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
- Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1990. "Equilibrium Short Horizons of Investors and Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 148-53, May.
- Robert Townsend, 1979.
"Optimal contracts and competitive markets with costly state verification,"
Staff Report
45, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
- Townsend, Robert M., 1979. "Optimal contracts and competitive markets with costly state verification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 265-293, October.
- Stulz, ReneM. & Johnson, Herb, 1985. "An analysis of secured debt," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 501-521, December.
- Fluck, Zsuzsanna, 1998. "Optimal Financial Contracting: Debt versus Outside Equity," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 11(2), pages 383-418.
- 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.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Battiston, Stefano & Delli Gatti, Domenico & Gallegati, Mauro & Greenwald, Bruce & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 2007. "Credit chains and bankruptcy propagation in production networks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 2061-2084, June.
- Karel Janda, 2006. "Lender and Borrower as Principal and Agent," Working Papers IES 2006/24, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Jul 2006.
- Massimo Omiccioli, 2005. "Trade Credit as Collateral," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 553, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
- Michael Manove & A. Jorge Padilla & Marco Pagano, 1998.
"Collateral vs. Project Screening: A Model of Lazy Banks,"
CSEF Working Papers
10, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
- Manove, M. & Padilla, A.J. & Pagano, M., 1998. "Collateral vs. Project Screening: a Model of Lazy Banks," Papers 9807, Centro de Estudios Monetarios Y Financieros-.
- Manove, Michael & Padilla, Atilano Jorge & Pagano, Marco, 2000. "Collateral Vs. Project Screening: A Model Of Lazy Banks," CEPR Discussion Papers 2439, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
- John, Kose & Lynch, Anthony W. & Puri, Manju, 2002. "Credit Ratings, Collateral and Loan Characteristics: Implications for Yield," Research Papers 1748, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:2544For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Roula I. Yazigi).
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

