IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/mateco/v50y2014icp54-62.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Debt, equity, and information

Author

Listed:
  • M. M. Buehlmaier, Matthias

Abstract

Most firms issue financial assets such as debt or equity (e.g. bonds or stock) to outside investors. While these financial assets differ greatly in their characteristics, their diversity has received little attention in the literature. Filling this important gap in the literature, this paper views debt and equity as financial contracts, and asks why they are optimal instead of other financial contracts. By endogenizing the bankruptcy process, this paper shows how debt and equity arise as a consequence of an optimal allocation of cash-flow rights and monitoring rights, and how equity leads to dividend signaling.

Suggested Citation

  • M. M. Buehlmaier, Matthias, 2014. "Debt, equity, and information," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 54-62.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:mateco:v:50:y:2014:i:c:p:54-62
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmateco.2013.09.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304406813000864
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmateco.2013.09.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1982. "Perfect Equilibrium in a Bargaining Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 97-109, January.
    2. Berkovitch, Elazar & Israel, Ronen & Zender, Jaime F., 1998. "The Design of Bankruptcy Law: A Case for Management Bias in Bankruptcy Reorganizations," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(4), pages 441-464, December.
    3. Bruno Biais & Thomas Mariotti & Guillaume Plantin & Jean-Charles Rochet, 2007. "Dynamic Security Design: Convergence to Continuous Time and Asset Pricing Implications," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 345-390.
    4. Berkovitch, Elazar & Israel, Ronen, 1999. "Optimal Bankruptcy Laws across Different Economic Systems," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(2), pages 347-377.
    5. Peter M. DeMarzo & Michael J. Fishman, 2007. "Optimal Long-Term Financial Contracting," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(6), pages 2079-2128, November.
    6. Cornelli, Francesca & Felli, Leonardo, 1997. "Ex-ante efficiency of bankruptcy procedures," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-5), pages 475-485, April.
    7. Douglas W. Diamond, 1984. "Financial Intermediation and Delegated Monitoring," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(3), pages 393-414.
    8. Fulghieri, Paolo & Lukin, Dmitry, 2001. "Information production, dilution costs, and optimal security design," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 3-42, July.
    9. Steven N. Kaplan & Per Strömberg, 2003. "Financial Contracting Theory Meets the Real World: An Empirical Analysis of Venture Capital Contracts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 281-315.
    10. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1985. "A Bargaining Model with Incomplete Information about Time Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(5), pages 1151-1172, September.
    11. Philippe Aghion & Patrick Bolton, 1992. "An Incomplete Contracts Approach to Financial Contracting," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(3), pages 473-494.
    12. Bolton, Patrick & Scharfstein, David S, 1996. "Optimal Debt Structure and the Number of Creditors," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 1-25, February.
    13. Mathias Dewatripont & Jean Tirole, 1994. "A Theory of Debt and Equity: Diversity of Securities and Manager-Shareholder Congruence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 1027-1054.
    14. Stefan Krasa & Anne P. Villamil, 2000. "Optimal Contracts when Enforcement Is a Decision Variable," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(1), pages 119-134, January.
    15. 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.
    16. Fluck, Zsuzsanna, 1998. "Optimal Financial Contracting: Debt versus Outside Equity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 11(2), pages 383-418.
    17. Douglas Gale & Martin Hellwig, 1985. "Incentive-Compatible Debt Contracts: The One-Period Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(4), pages 647-663.
    18. 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.
    19. Erik Berglöf & Ernst-Ludwig von Thadden, 1994. "Short-Term versus Long-Term Interests: Capital Structure with Multiple Investors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 1055-1084.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chad Brown & Jeronimo Carballo & Alessandro Peri, 2022. "Bankruptcy Shocks and Legal Labor Markets: Evidence from the Court Competition Era," Papers 2202.00044, arXiv.org.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Langberg, Nisan, 2008. "Optimal financing for growth firms," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 379-406, July.
    2. Anderson, Ronald W. & Nyborg, Kjell G., 2011. "Financing and corporate growth under repeated moral hazard," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 1-24, January.
    3. Gennaioli, Nicola & Rossi, Stefano, 2008. "Optimal Resolutions of Financial Distress by Contract," CEI Working Paper Series 2008-6, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    4. Mathias Dewatripont & Patrick Legros & Steven A. Matthews, 2003. "Moral Hazard and Capital Structure Dynamics," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(4), pages 890-930, June.
    5. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "A Survey of Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 737-783, June.
    6. Oliver Hart, 2001. "Financial Contracting," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1079-1100, December.
    7. Stein, Jeremy C., 2003. "Agency, information and corporate investment," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 111-165, Elsevier.
    8. Ernst-Ludwig VON THADDEN & Erik BERGLÖF & Gérard ROLAND, 2003. "Optimal Debt Design and the Role of Bankruptcy," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 03.13, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    9. Dang, Viet Anh, 2010. "Optimal financial contracts with hidden effort, unobservable profits and endogenous costs of effort," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 75-89, February.
    10. Guembel, Alexander & White, Lucy, 2014. "Good cop, bad cop: Complementarities between debt and equity in disciplining management," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 541-569.
    11. Tan, Liang, 2013. "Creditor control rights, state of nature verification, and financial reporting conservatism," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 1-22.
    12. Igor Salitskiy, 2014. "Optimal Dynamic Contracts in Financial Intermediation: With an Application to Venture Capital Financing," 2014 Meeting Papers 355, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Fluck, Zsuzsanna, 1999. "The Dynamics of the Management-Shareholder Conflict," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(2), pages 379-404.
    14. Arping, Stefan, 2005. "Protective interests and creative destruction," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 401-431, October.
    15. Berlin, Mitchell & Mester, Loretta J., 2001. "Lender Liability and Large Investors," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 108-137, April.
    16. Arping, Stefan & Diaw, Khaled M., 2008. "Sunk costs, entry deterrence, and financial constraints," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 490-501, March.
    17. Steven N. Kaplan & Per Strömberg, 2003. "Financial Contracting Theory Meets the Real World: An Empirical Analysis of Venture Capital Contracts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 281-315.
    18. João Pinto & Mário Coutinho dos Santos, 2014. "Corporate Financing Choices after the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 03, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    19. Roman Inderst & Holger M. Mueller, 2006. "Informed Lending and Security Design," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(5), pages 2137-2162, October.
    20. Miyazawa, Shinjiro, 2012. "Optimal borrowing structure: An explanation for the multiplicity of large-share creditors and the differentiation among them," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 434-453.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:mateco:v:50:y:2014:i:c:p:54-62. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jmateco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.