IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5907.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Default and Renegotiation: A Dynamic Model of Debt

Author

Listed:
  • Oliver Hart
  • John Moore

Abstract

We analyze the role of debt in persuading an entrepreneur to pay out cash flows, rather than to divert them. In the first part of the paper we study the optimal debt contract -- specifically, the trade-off between the size of the loan and the repayment -- under the assumption that some debt contract is optimal. In the second part we consider a more general class of (non-debt) contracts, and derive sufficient conditions for debt to be optimal among these.

Suggested Citation

  • Oliver Hart & John Moore, 1997. "Default and Renegotiation: A Dynamic Model of Debt," NBER Working Papers 5907, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5907
    Note: CF
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w5907.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1990. "Property Rights and the Nature of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1119-1158, December.
    2. Oliver Hart & John Moore, 1998. "Default and Renegotiation: A Dynamic Model of Debt," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-41.
    3. Harris, Milton & Raviv, Artur, 1995. "The Role of Games in Security Design," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 8(2), pages 327-367.
    4. Bulow, Jeremy & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1989. "A Constant Recontracting Model of Sovereign Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 155-178, February.
    5. Eric Maskin & John Moore, 1999. "Implementation and Renegotiation," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 66(1), pages 39-56.
    6. Huberman, Gur & Kahn, Charles M., 1988. "Strategic renegotiation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 117-121.
    7. 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.
    8. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver D, 1986. "The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 691-719, August.
    9. Oliver Hart & John Moore, 1994. "A Theory of Debt Based on the Inalienability of Human Capital," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 109(4), pages 841-879.
    10. Douglas Gale & Martin Hellwig, 1985. "Incentive-Compatible Debt Contracts: The One-Period Problem," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 52(4), pages 647-663.
    11. 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.
    12. Diamond, Douglas W, 1989. "Reputation Acquisition in Debt Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 828-862, August.
    13. Milgrom, Paul R & Weber, Robert J, 1982. "A Theory of Auctions and Competitive Bidding," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1089-1122, September.
    14. Gale, Douglas & Hellwig, Martin, 1989. "Repudiation and Renegotiation: The Case of Sovereign Debt," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 30(1), pages 3-31, February.
    15. Erik Berglöf & Ernst-Ludwig von Thadden, 1994. "Short-Term versus Long-Term Interests: Capital Structure with Multiple Investors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 109(4), pages 1055-1084.
    16. Franklin Allen, 1983. "Credit Rationing and Payment Incentives," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(4), pages 639-646.
    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. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "A Survey of Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 737-783, June.
    2. Roberts, Michael R. & Sufi, Amir, 2009. "Renegotiation of financial contracts: Evidence from private credit agreements," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 159-184, August.
    3. Richard Scheelings, 2005. "Essays in Law and Economics," Levine's Working Paper Archive 618897000000000950, David K. Levine.
    4. 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.
    5. Oliver Hart, 2001. "Financial Contracting," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1079-1100, December.
    6. 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.
    7. Nikolaev, Valeri V., 2018. "Scope for renegotiation in private debt contracts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 270-301.
    8. Martin Oehmke & Hongda Zhong & Chong Huang, 2017. "A Theory of Multi-Period Debt Structure," 2017 Meeting Papers 1645, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Steven Matthews, 2002. "Moral Hazard and Capital Structure Dynamics (joint with Mathias Dewatripont and Patrick Legros) Note the special time," Theory workshop papers 357966000000000095, UCLA Department of Economics.
    10. 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.
    11. Schmidt, Klaus, 2017. "The 2016 Nobel Memorial Prize in Contract Theory," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 19, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    12. Luigi Zingales, 2000. "In Search of New Foundations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1623-1653, August.
    13. Liu, Jia & Riyanto, Yohanes E., 2019. "Liquidation policy and credit history in financial contracting: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 526-542.
    14. 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.
    15. Curtiss, Jarmila, 2012. "Determinants of Financial Capital Use: Review of theories and implications for rural businesses," Working papers 122846, Factor Markets, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    16. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2016. "Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström: Contract Theory," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2016-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    17. Huang, Chong & Oehmke, Martin & Zhong, Hongda, 2019. "A theory of multiperiod debt structure," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 90429, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Raghuram Rajan, 2012. "The Corporation in Finance," NBER Working Papers 17760, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Kang, Yeongjae, 1997. "Expropriation Risk, Governance Control and Equilibrium Financial Contract," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 166, Stockholm School of Economics.
    20. Eduard Marinov, 2016. "The 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 97-149.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    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:5907. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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: (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.