IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cor/louvco/2003069.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Financial contracting along the business cycle

Author

Listed:
  • ATTAR, Andréa

Abstract

The paper investigates the effects of macroeconomic conditions on firms' capital structure. We introduce a repeated lender-borrower interaction that allows for debt and equity financing to co-exist as optimal securities in every period. The presence of asymmetric information in the market for loans is responsible for endogenous fluctuations to take place.It is possible to state sufficient conditions for the overall economy debt-equity ratio to exhibit a counter-cyclical behavior. This result is widely supported by several recent empirical finance works.

Suggested Citation

  • ATTAR, Andréa, 2003. "Financial contracting along the business cycle," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2003069, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    • Handle: RePEc:cor:louvco:2003069
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://sites.uclouvain.be/core/publications/coredp/coredp2003.html
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stewart C. Myers & Nicholas S. Majluf, 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have InformationThat Investors Do Not Have," NBER Working Papers 1396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    3. Rogerson, William P, 1985. "The First-Order Approach to Principal-Agent Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1357-1367, November.
    4. Chang, Chun, 1990. "The dynamic structure of optimal debt contracts," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 68-86, October.
    5. Suarez, Javier & Sussman, Oren, 1997. "Endogenous Cycles in a Stiglitz-Weiss Economy," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 47-71, September.
    6. Dilip Mookherjee & Ivan Png, 1989. "Optimal Auditing, Insurance, and Redistribution," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(2), pages 399-415.
    7. Martin F. Hellwig, 2005. "Risk aversion and incentive compatibility with ex post information asymmetry," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Dionysius Glycopantis & Nicholas C. Yannelis (ed.), Differential Information Economies, pages 341-363, Springer.
    8. Myerson, Roger B, 1979. "Incentive Compatibility and the Bargaining Problem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(1), pages 61-73, January.
    9. Innes, Robert D., 1990. "Limited liability and incentive contracting with ex-ante action choices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 45-67, October.
    10. Charles W. Calomiris & Berry Wilson, 2004. "Bank Capital and Portfolio Management: The 1930s "Capital Crunch" and the Scramble to Shed Risk," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 77(3), pages 421-456, July.
    11. Pietro Reichlin & Paolo Siconolfi, 2004. "Optimal debt contracts and moral hazard along the business cycle," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 24(1), pages 75-109, July.
    12. Bruce D. Smith & John H. Boyd, 1998. "The evolution of debt and equity markets in economic development," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 12(3), pages 519-560.
    13. Attar, Andrea & Campioni, Eloisa, 2003. "Costly state verification and debt contracts: a critical resume," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(4), pages 315-343, December.
    14. Hart, Oliver, 1995. "Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288817, Decembrie.
    15. 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.
    16. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark, 1989. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 14-31, March.
    17. Williamson, Stephen D., 1986. "Costly monitoring, financial intermediation, and equilibrium credit rationing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 159-179, September.
    18. Boyd, John H. & Smith, Bruce D., 1999. "The Use of Debt and Equity in Optimal Financial Contracts," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 270-316, October.
    19. Bruce C. Greenwald & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1993. "Financial Market Imperfections and Business Cycles," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(1), pages 77-114.
    20. Myers, Stewart C., 1984. "Capital structure puzzle," Working papers 1548-84., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    21. Myers, Stewart C, 1984. "The Capital Structure Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(3), pages 575-592, July.
    22. Xavier Freixas & Jean-Charles Rochet, 1997. "Microeconomics of Banking," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262061937, December.
    23. Steven Shavell, 1979. "On Moral Hazard and Insurance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(4), pages 541-562.
    24. C. Choe, 1998. "A mechanism design approach to an optimal contract under ex ante and ex post private information," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 3(3), pages 237-255.
    25. Stewart C. Myers, 1984. "Capital Structure Puzzle," NBER Working Papers 1393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    26. Stefan Krasa & Anne P. Villamil, 2000. "Optimal Contracts when Enforcement Is a Decision Variable," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(1), pages 119-134, January.
    27. 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.
    28. Korajczyk, Robert A. & Levy, Amnon, 2003. "Capital structure choice: macroeconomic conditions and financial constraints," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 75-109, April.
    29. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Attar, Andrea & Campioni, Eloisa, 2003. "Costly state verification and debt contracts: a critical resume," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(4), pages 315-343, December.
    2. Gersbach, Hans & Uhlig, Harald, 2006. "Debt contracts and collapse as competition phenomena," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 556-574, October.
    3. Larsson, Bo & Wijkander, Hans, 2015. "Dynamic Banking with Endogenous Risk Based Funding Cost: Value Maximization, Risk-taking, Responses to Regulation and Credit Contraction," Research Papers in Economics 2015:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    4. Mario Tirelli, 2021. "On the optimal investment finance of small businesses," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1639-1665, April.
    5. Langberg, Nisan, 2008. "Optimal financing for growth firms," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 379-406, July.
    6. João F. Gomes & Amir Yaron & Lu Zhang, 2006. "Asset Pricing Implications of Firms' Financing Constraints," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(4), pages 1321-1356.
    7. Poitevin, Michel, 1989. "Information et marchés financiers : une revue de littérature," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 65(4), pages 555-589, décembre.
    8. Bolton, Patrick & Li, Ye & Wang, Neng & Yang, Jinqiang, 2020. "Dynamic Banking and the Value of Deposits," Working Paper Series 2020-13, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    9. C. N. Bagley & D. K. Ghosh & U. Yaari, 1998. "Pecking order as a dynamic leverage theory," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(2), pages 157-183.
    10. Jukka Isohätälä & Alistair Milne & Donald Robertson, 2020. "The Net Worth Trap: Investment and Output Dynamics in the Presence of Financing Constraints," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-32, August.
    11. Dang, Viet Anh & Kim, Minjoo & Shin, Yongcheol, 2014. "Asymmetric adjustment toward optimal capital structure: Evidence from a crisis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 226-242.
    12. Bruno Biais & Thomas Mariotti, 2005. "Strategic Liquidity Supply and Security Design," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(3), pages 615-649.
    13. Zhixiong Zeng, 2013. "A theory of the non-neutrality of money with banking frictions and bank recapitalization," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(2), pages 729-754, March.
    14. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1996. "The Financial Accelerator and the Flight to Quality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 1-15, February.
    15. Khalil, Fahad & Martimort, David & Parigi, Bruno, 2007. "Monitoring a common agent: Implications for financial contracting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 135(1), pages 35-67, July.
    16. W. Allard Bruinshoofd & Clemens J. M. Kool, 2004. "Dutch corporate liquidity mangement: New evidence on aggregation," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 7, pages 195-230, November.
    17. Kenneth A. Froot, 2007. "Risk Management, Capital Budgeting, and Capital Structure Policy for Insurers and Reinsurers," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 74(2), pages 273-299, June.
    18. Alter, Adrian & Elekdag, Selim, 2020. "Emerging market corporate leverage and global financial conditions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    19. Bougheas, Spiros, 2007. "Imperfect capital markets, income distribution and the choice of external finance: A financial equilibrium approach," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 507-520, September.
    20. Meyer-Brauns, Philipp, 2014. "Financial Contracting with Tax Evaders," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100524, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Optimal financial contracts; endogenous fluctuations;

    JEL classification:

    • D92 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice, Investment, Capacity, and Financing
    • G33 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Bankruptcy; Liquidation

    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:cor:louvco:2003069. 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: Alain GILLIS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/coreebe.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.