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Feedback and Contagion through Distressed Competition

Author

Listed:
  • Hui Chen
  • Winston Wei Dou
  • Hongye Guo
  • Yan Ji

Abstract

Firms tend to compete more aggressively in financial distress; this intensified competition, in turn, reduces profit margins, pushing themselves further into distress and adversely affecting their industry peers. To study such feedback and contagion effects, we incorporate strategic competition into a dynamic model with long-term defaultable debt, exploring various peer interactions like predation and price war. The feedback effect represents a novel source of financial distress costs associated with leverage, which helps explain the negative profitability-leverage relation across industries. Owing to the contagion effect, firms’ optimal leverage is often excessively high from an industry perspective, undermining the industry's financial stability.

Suggested Citation

  • Hui Chen & Winston Wei Dou & Hongye Guo & Yan Ji, 2023. "Feedback and Contagion through Distressed Competition," NBER Working Papers 30841, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30841
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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