This paper examines the relationship between debt contract and the process of resolving financial distress, through either debt restructuring or bankruptcy procedure. It effectively justifies the popularity of the standard debt contract by demonstrating that the standard debt contract is the optimal debt contract for small business with the costly random verification scheme. Although this result is quite different from Townsend (1979) and Williamson (1986,1987), it is compatible with their results and serves as a good supplement. This paper relates credit rationing directly to bankruptcy cost. It is shown that credit rationing, characterized as a loan amount granted less than requested, becomes more severe as bankruptcy cost rises. This result supports 1994 amendments to the Bankruptcy Code since it shows that simplifying bankruptcy procedure for small business reduces credit rationing, therefore, enhance lending.
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Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Finance with number
9612003.
Length: 26 pages Date of creation: 13 Dec 1996 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpfi:9612003
Note: Type of Document - Word 6.0; prepared on IBM ; to print on HP/PostScript; pages: 26 ; figures: none Contact details of provider: Web page: http://129.3.20.41
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Find related papers by JEL classification: G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance K2 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
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.:
Border, Kim C. & Sobel, Joel., 1985.
"A Theory of Auditing and Plunder,"
Working Papers
573, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
[Downloadable!]
Philippe Aghion & Oliver D. Hart & John Moore, 1994.
"The Economics of Bankruptcy Reform,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Transition in Eastern Europe, Volume 2, The, pages 215-244
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!]