IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/rfinst/v21y2008i6p2743-2778.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Default Risk, Shareholder Advantage, and Stock Returns

Author

Listed:
  • Lorenzo Garlappi
  • Tao Shu
  • Hong Yan

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between default probability and stock returns. Using the Expected Default Frequency (EDF) of Moody's KMV, we document that higher default probabilities are not associated with higher expected stock returns. Within a model of bargaining between equity holders and debt holders in default, we show that the relationship between default probability and equity return is (i) upward sloping for firms where shareholders can extract little benefit from renegotiation (low "shareholder advantage") and (ii) humped and downward sloping for firms with high shareholder advantage. This dichotomy implies that distressed firms with stronger shareholder advantage should exhibit lower expected returns in the cross section. Our empirical evidence, based on several proxies for shareholder advantage, is consistent with the model's predictions. The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org., Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Lorenzo Garlappi & Tao Shu & Hong Yan, 2008. "Default Risk, Shareholder Advantage, and Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(6), pages 2743-2778, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:21:y:2008:i:6:p:2743-2778
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rfs/hhl044
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:oup:rfinst:v:21:y:2008:i:6:p:2743-2778. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfsssea.html .

    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.