IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/22091.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Management Risk Affects Corporate Debt

Author

Listed:
  • Yihui Pan
  • Tracy Yue Wang
  • Michael S. Weisbach

Abstract

Management risk occurs when uncertainty about future managerial decisions increases a firm’s overall risk. This paper argues that management risk is an important yet unexplored determinant of a firm’s default risk and the pricing of its debt. CDS spreads, loan spreads and bond yield spreads all increase at the time of CEO turnover, when management risk is highest, and decline over the first three years of CEO tenure, regardless of the reason for the turnover. A similar pattern but of smaller magnitude occurs around CFO turnovers. The increase in the CDS spread at the time of the CEO departure announcement, the change in the spread when the incoming CEO takes office, as well as the sensitivity of the spread to the new CEO’s tenure, all depend on the amount of prior uncertainty about the new management.

Suggested Citation

  • Yihui Pan & Tracy Yue Wang & Michael S. Weisbach, 2016. "How Management Risk Affects Corporate Debt," NBER Working Papers 22091, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22091
    Note: AP CF
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22091.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Naveen, Lalitha, 2006. "Organizational Complexity and Succession Planning," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(3), pages 661-683, September.
    2. Philip E. Strahan, 1999. "Borrower risk and the price and nonprice terms of bank loans," Staff Reports 90, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    3. Ľuboš Pástor & Veronesi Pietro, 2003. "Stock Valuation and Learning about Profitability," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(5), pages 1749-1789, October.
    4. Lubos PÁstor & Veronesi Pietro, 2003. "Stock Valuation and Learning about Profitability," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(5), pages 1749-1790, October.
    5. Carola Schenone, 2010. "Lending Relationships and Information Rents: Do Banks Exploit Their Information Advantages?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(3), pages 1149-1199, March.
    6. Sudheer Chava & Michael R. Roberts, 2008. "How Does Financing Impact Investment? The Role of Debt Covenants," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(5), pages 2085-2121, October.
    7. Rajan, Raghuram G, 1992. "Insiders and Outsiders: The Choice between Informed and Arm's-Length Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1367-1400, September.
    8. Hermalin, Benjamin E. & Weisbach, Michael S., 2014. "Understanding Corporate Governance through Learning Models of Managerial Competence," Working Paper Series 2014-04, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    9. Mitchell A. Petersen & Raghuram G. Rajan, 1995. "The Effect of Credit Market Competition on Lending Relationships," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 407-443.
    10. Bharath, Sreedhar & Dahiya, Sandeep & Saunders, Anthony & Srinivasan, Anand, 2007. "So what do I get? The bank's view of lending relationships," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 368-419, August.
    11. Berger, Allen N & Udell, Gregory F, 1995. "Relationship Lending and Lines of Credit in Small Firm Finance," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(3), pages 351-381, July.
    12. Stephen Adam Karolyi, 2018. "Personal Lending Relationships," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(1), pages 5-49, February.
    13. Roberto Blanco & Simon Brennan & Ian W. Marsh, 2005. "An Empirical Analysis of the Dynamic Relation between Investment‐Grade Bonds and Credit Default Swaps," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(5), pages 2255-2281, October.
    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. Gareth Anderson & Saleem Bahaj & Matthieu Chavaz & Angus Foulis & Gabor Pinter, 2023. "Lending Relationships and the Collateral Channel," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(3), pages 851-887.
    2. Ismailescu, Iuliana & Col, Burcin, 2022. "Cross-border M&As and credit risk: Evidence from the CDS market," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 51-73.
    3. Pham, Mia Hang, 2020. "In law we trust: Lawyer CEOs and stock liquidity," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    4. Zhi Li & Lingling Wang & Karen Wruck, 2020. "Accounting‐Based Compensation and Debt Contracts," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(3), pages 1475-1511, September.
    5. Shang, Chenguang, 2021. "Dare to play with fire? Managerial ability and the use of short-term debt," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    6. Benz, Andreas & Demerjian, Peter R. & Hoang, Daniel & Ruckes, Martin E., 2024. "Picking winners: Managerial ability and capital allocation," Working Paper Series in Economics 163, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    7. Jeong‐Bon Kim & Jeff J. Wang & Eliza Xia Zhang, 2021. "Does real earnings smoothing reduce investors’ perceived risk?," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(9-10), pages 1560-1595, October.
    8. Braga-Alves, Marcus V. & Ismailescu, Iuliana & Sen, Kaustav, 2022. "Powerful CEOs and their legacy: Evidence from credit risk around CEO turnovers," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 345-358.
    9. Chen, Tsung-Kang & Tseng, Yijie & Hung, Yu-Shun & Huang, Mei-Ling, 2023. "Management efficiency uncertainty and its implications for bondholders," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 73-92.
    10. Hyeongjun Kim & Hoon Cho & Doojin Ryu, 2022. "Corporate Bankruptcy Prediction Using Machine Learning Methodologies with a Focus on Sequential Data," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 59(3), pages 1231-1249, March.
    11. Brian Akins & David De Angelis & Maclean Gaulin, 2020. "Debt Contracting on Management," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(4), pages 2095-2137, August.
    12. Dutton, Joseph & Lockwood, Matthew, 2017. "Ideas, institutions and interests in the politics of cross-border electricity interconnection: Greenlink, Britain and Ireland," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 375-385.

    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. Pan, Yihui & Wang, Tracy Yue & Weisbach, Michael S., 2014. "Does Uncertainty about Management Affect Firms' Costs of Borrowing?," Working Paper Series 2014-14, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    2. Keil, Jan, 2023. "Lending relationships when creditors are in control," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    3. Marcello Pagnini & Paola Rossi & Valerio Vacca & Iftekhar Hasan & Liuling Liu & Haizhi Wang & Xinting Zhen, 2017. "Bank Market Power and Loan Contracts: Empirical Evidence," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 46(3), pages 649-676, November.
    4. Botsch, Matthew & Vanasco, Victoria, 2019. "Learning by lending," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 1-14.
    5. Wenlian Gao & Feifei Zhu & Kai Chen, 2023. "The role of bank lenders in firm leverage adjustments," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 46(1), pages 63-97, February.
    6. Neuhann, Daniel & Saidi, Farzad, 2018. "Do universal banks finance riskier but more productive firms?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(1), pages 66-85.
    7. Gabriel J. Power & Djerry C. Mbianda Tandja, 2022. "Should lenders also advise? Evidence from project loans," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 961-985, December.
    8. Shu Feng & Chang Liu & Xiaoling Pu, 2022. "Connected Lending in Bank Lines of Credit," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 61(2), pages 187-216, April.
    9. Allen N. Berger & Christa H. S. Bouwman & Lars Norden & Raluca A. Roman & Gregory F. Udell & Teng Wang, 2021. "Piercing Through Opacity: Relationships and Credit Card Lending to Consumers and Small Businesses During Normal Times and the COVID-19 Crisis," Working Papers 21-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    10. Adam, Tim R. & Streitz, Daniel, 2016. "Hold-up and the use of performance-sensitive debt," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 47-67.
    11. Olivier Darmouni, 2020. "Informational Frictions and the Credit Crunch," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(4), pages 2055-2094, August.
    12. Julian Mattes & Sascha Steffen & Mark Wahrenburg, 2013. "Do Information Rents in Loan Spreads Persist over the Business Cycles?," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 43(2), pages 175-195, April.
    13. Jarko Fidrmuc & Philipp Schreiber & Martin Siddiqui, 2018. "Intangible Assets and the Determinants of a Single Bank Relation of German SMEs," European Journal of Business Science and Technology, Mendel University in Brno, Faculty of Business and Economics, vol. 4(1), pages 5-30.
    14. Chen, Jiayuan & Gong, Di & Muckley, Cal, 2020. "Stock market illiquidity, bargaining power and the cost of borrowing," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 181-206.
    15. Ting Chen & Xiumin Martin, 2011. "Do Bank‐Affiliated Analysts Benefit from Lending Relationships?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(3), pages 633-675, June.
    16. Bing Xu & Honglin Wang & Adrian Van Rixtel, 2015. "Do banks extract informational rents through collateral?," BIS Working Papers 522, Bank for International Settlements.
    17. Jung Koo Kang & Christopher D. Williams & Regina Wittenberg-Moerman, 2021. "CDS trading and nonrelationship lending dynamics," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 258-292, March.
    18. José Renato Haas Ornelas & Alvaro Pedraza & Claudia Ruiz-Ortega & Thiago Christiano Silva, 2021. "Credit Allocation When Private Banks Distribute Government Loans," Working Papers Series 548, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    19. Yasuda, Ayako, 2007. "Bank relationships and underwriter competition: Evidence from Japan," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 369-404, November.
    20. Engelberg, Joseph & Gao, Pengjie & Parsons, Christopher A., 2012. "Friends with money," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 169-188.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation
    • M51 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:22091. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.