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    Equity, Bonds, and Bank Debt: CapitalStructure and Financial Market Equilibriumunder Asymmetric Information

    Patrick Bolton

    Princeton University

    Xavier Freixas

    Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Bank of England

    This paper proposes a model of financial markets and corporate

    finance, with asymmetric information and no taxes, where equityissues, bank debt, and bond financing coexist in equilibrium. Therelationship banking aspect of financial intermediation is empha-sized: firms turn to banks as a source of investment mainly becausebanks are good at helping them through times of financial distress.This financial flexibility is costly since banks face costs of capitalthemselves (which they attempt to minimize through securitiza-tion). To avoid this intermediation cost, firms may turn to bond

    We are grateful to one referee for very helpful comments. We also thank HelmutBester, Richard Brealey, Sudipto Bhattacharya, Mathias Dewatripont, BernardDumas, Gerard Genotte, Mark Gertler, Denis Gromb, Martin Hellwig, Bengt Holm-strom, Alex Ljungqvist, Jose Marin, Colin Mayer, Charlotte Ostergaard, WilliamPerraudin, Enrico Perotti, Rafael Repullo, Jean-Charles Rochet, Jean Tirole, Ernst-Ludwig von Thadden, and David Webb as well as seminar participants at Studienzen-trum Gerzensee, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliches Zentrum Basel, Wharton, the Centrefor Economic Policy Research conference on banking held in Madrid (February1994), the Tel Aviv conference on financial intermediation ( January 1994), the In-nocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research conference on the design ofthe banking system held in Milan (February 1995), the Financial Markets GroupLondon Business School conference in honor of Fischer Black held in Alghero (Sep-tember 1996), and the Centre for Economic Policy Research conference on financialintermediation and the structure of capital markets held at Institut Europeen dAd-ministration des Affaires (April 1997) for helpful comments. This paper originatedat the Financial Markets Group of the London School of Economics, when XavierFreixas was a visiting fellow. Financial support from a grant from the Direccion Gen-eral de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnica (PB93-0388) is gratefully acknowledged.

    [Journal of Political Economy, 2000, vol. 108, no. 2] 2000 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0022-3808/2000/10802-0003$02.50

    324

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    equity, bonds, and bank debt 325

    or equity financing, but bonds imply an inefficient liquidation costand equity an informational dilution cost. We show that in equilib-rium the riskier firms prefer bank loans, the safer ones tap the

    bond markets, and the ones in between prefer to issue both equityand bonds. This segmentation is broadly consistent with stylizedfacts.

    I. Introduction

    The main purpose of this paper is to build a tractable equilibrium

    model of the capital market comprising a banking sector and a pri-mary securities market, where firms endogenously determine theirfinancial structure. The model combines ideas from several existingcapital structure theories under asymmetric information to providea unified explanation of some well-known stylized facts.

    The general observations our model is consistent with are that (i)the composition of bank finance and direct finance varies acrossfirms: bond financing is found predominantly in mature and rela-tively safe firms whereas bank finance and equity are the main source

    of funding for start-up firms and risky ventures (Petersen and Rajan1994, 1995); (ii) banks face substantial costs of issuing equity (Ca-lomiris and Wilson 1998); (iii) a significant fraction of bank loansare securitized (Fabozzi and Carlson 1992); (iv) bank loan renegotia-tions are easier than bond restructuring (Lummer and McConnell1989; Gilson, Kose, and Lang 1990); (v) bank debt is senior to deben-tures; (vi) firms switch out of bank loans into commercial paper (orother forms of securitized financing) when bank spreads increase(Kashyap, Stein, and Wilcox 1993); and (vii) changes in interest

    rates have a different effect on large and small firms (Gertler andGilchrist 1994; Perez-Quiros and Timmermann 1998).Our paper is not the first attempt at building such a framework.

    It adds to a small recent theoretical literature concerned with thecoexistence of bank lending and bond financing, most notably, Be-sanko and Kanatas (1993), Hoshi, Kashyap, and Scharfstein (1993),Chemmanur and Fulghieri (1994), Boot and Thakor (1997), Holm-strom and Tirole (1997), and Repullo and Suarez (1997). Our maincontribution to this literature is to introduce outside equity along

    with bonds and bank debt and thus to provide the first synthesis ofcapital structure choice theories and financial market equilibriumbased on information and incentive considerations.

    In addition, by taking firms capital structure choices to be theoutcome of the interplay of aggregate demand for and supply ofbank loans, we are able to explain financing patterns that could not

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    326 journal of political economy

    be explained by a partial equilibrium approach focusing only onfirms demand for funds and abstracting from intermediaries costs

    of funding. For example, we are able to explain why Myerss peckingorder theory of financing appears to break down for risky start-upventures. These firms would like to reduce informational dilutioncosts by funding their investments through a bank loan or a bondissue but are too risky to be able to obtain a bank loan or issue bonds.Their only option is equity financing, which maximizes dilution costsbut is feasible.

    Our model borrows from Myers and Majluf (1984) and others theidea that firms raising equity bear an informational dilution cost

    when there is asymmetric information between firms and investors.It borrows from Hart and Moore (1995), among others, the ideathat bank debt is more easily renegotiated than a dispersed bondissue, and from Diamond (1994) the idea that although bank loansare easier to restructure, banks themselves must bear intermediationcosts, which ultimately must be borne by borrowers.

    In the capital market equilibrium we derive, firm financing is seg-mented as follows: (i) the riskiest firms (which are often start-ups)either are unable to obtain funding or are constrained to issue eq-

    uity; (ii) somewhat safer firms are able to take out bank loans, whichprovide the cheapest form of flexible financing they demand; and(iii) the safest firms prefer to tap securities markets and thus avoidpaying the intermediation cost.

    This segmentation is broadly consistent with stylized facts. Admit-tedly, an important aspect of U.S. capital markets that is missing hereis the presence of junk bonds. However, segmentation in Europeancapital markets, where only the safest and most mature firms issuebonds, is quite accurately reflected in this equilibrium.

    We take intermediation costs to be mainly banks costs of raisingequity to meet capital requirements. For simplicity, these costs aretaken to be exogenous here, but they can be endogenized as in Bol-ton and Freixas (1998). In order to minimize these costs, banks se-curitize the safe portion of their loans in the form of pass-throughcertificates. This enables them to take part of the loan off their bal-ance sheet and thus reduce their intermediation costs. It is interest-ing that securitization in our model is driven by the priority structureof bank debt versus corporate bonds, the latter being junior to the

    former. Because of the higher priority of bank debt over bonds,banks may be induced to inefficiently liquidate a firm that has issuedtoo many bonds. As a result, their role as providers of flexible fi-nance would be undermined. To overcome this constraint, bankstake up a bigger share of a firms debt and securitize the safe (asset-backed) portion of that debt. Overall, this financial transaction re-

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    equity, bonds, and bank debt 327

    duces the firms financing costs, provided that dilution costs gener-ated by securitization are not too high.

    Thus, in our model, banks equity base (and internally generatedfunds) is a key variable in constraining the total supply of bank loans.However, their ability to securitize a portion of their loans enablesthem to use their regulatory capital in a more efficient way. Thisis an important recent development of the intermediation process,especially in the United States, where the cumulative issuance ofasset-backed securities now exceeds the total volume of credit pro-vided by the banking system (Credit Crunch, 1998).

    The paper is organized as follows: Section II outlines the model.

    Section III derives the optimal mode of financing for firms. SectionIV derives the credit market equilibrium. Finally, Section V offerssome concluding comments. The proofs of most results are givenin the Appendix.

    II. The Model

    We consider an economy composed of a continuum of risk-neutralagents, firms and banks. Both firms and banks are run by wealth-

    constrained owner-managers who need to raise outside funds tocover their investment outlays. Firms investments can be fundedeither by issuing securities (bonds or shares) or by obtaining a bankloan. Banks can be funded by deposits, equity, or bond issues andby securitization of their loans. We begin by describing the charac-teristics of firms projects, and then we turn to the funding optionsavailable to firms and banks.

    A. Firms Investment Projects

    Each firm has a project requiring an investment I at date t 0 andyielding returns at t 1 and t 2. For simplicity, we assume thatprofits at dates t 1 and t 2 can take only two values, H and L,with H L, so that there are only four possible states of nature:{H, H}, {H, L}, {L, H}, and {L, L}. The project can be liquidated att 1, and a resale value A, such thatL A H, is obtained. Ofcourse, in that case the returns of period t 2 are forgone. Weassume, again for simplicity, that riskless interest rates are normal-

    ized to zero and that the liquidation value of the project at t

    2 iszero. The exact sequence of events and moves is outlined in figure 1.Firms owner-managers can invest at most w I in the firm and

    must raise at least I w from the financial markets or a financialintermediary. We shall assume, without loss of generality, thatowner-managers invest all their wealth in the firm, and we normalize

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    328 journal of political economy

    Fig. 1.Return structure of projects

    all our variables so thatI w 1. We also introduce private benefitsof control B 0, which owner-managers obtain at date t 2 if thefirm is not liquidated. These benefits can be made arbitrarily smalland are not transferable to outside investors.

    Firms differ in the probabilities p1 and p2 of obtaining high cashflow realizations in, respectively, periods 1 and 2. The range of possi-ble values for p1 is [p1, 1], where p1 1/2, and that for p2 is simply{0, 1}. We shall label firms according to their second-period return:Lfirms are said to be bad firms and have a second-period return

    ofL (p2

    0); Hfirms are good and obtain H during the secondperiod (p2 1). We assume that the value of p2 is drawn indepen-dently of the value of p1.

    1

    1 In an earlier version we allowed for p2 [p, p]. This more general formula-tion burdens the analysis without yielding any qualitatively different results.

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    equity, bonds, and bank debt 329

    Agents have different information on the value of p1 and p2. Weassume that p1 is publicly observable but that p2 is private informa-

    tion to the firm at t

    0. The probability p1 can be thought of as acredit rating. The value ofp2 is revealed only att 1 to a bank thathas lent to the firm at t 0, and only at t 2 to other securityholders. At date t 0, creditors prior beliefs about the value ofp2 are that p2 1 with probability (and p2 0 with probability1 ) so that E[p2] .

    We shall make several assumptions about firms type distributionand cash flow streams along the way. We begin by assuming thatsome of the firms at least have positive net present value projects

    and that cash flow streams are sufficiently risky that firms cannot getfunding by selling only the safe portion of their cash flows. Specifi-cally, we make the following assumption.

    Assumption 1. H H (1 )L I, so that at least firmswith p1 close to one can get funding.

    We shall also assume thatLfirms investment projects have a nega-tive net present value for all values ofp1. This is equivalent to statingthat H L I. For convenience, we shall make the followingslightly stronger assumption.

    Assumption 2.

    H

    L

    1.This assumption implies that no firm would be able to raise fund-ing of 1 without facing a liquidation risk, since 1 H L implies1 2L (H L), which is the maximum amount of bonds thatcan be issued without facing liquidation risk. With this assumptionwe also rule out signaling equilibria in which the firms choice ofcapital structure may reveal its type. Indeed, under our assumption,a bad firm always wants to mimic a good firm, for otherwise it wouldnever obtain any funding.

    B. Firms Financial Options

    Firms can choose any combination of bank debt, bond, and equityfinancing they desire. The main distinguishing features of thesethree instruments we emphasize are the following.

    Bond financing.A bond issue specifies a repayment to bondhold-ers of R1 at date t 1 and a repayment of R2 at date t 2. If thefirm is not able to meet its repayments at date t 1, the firm is

    declared bankrupt and is liquidated. If the firm is not able to meetits last-period repayments, the bondholders appropriate the firmsaccumulated, undistributed cash flow. Firms are allowed to roll overtheir bonds by making new bond issues at date t 1.

    Equity issue.An equity issue specifies a share a[0, 1] that out-side shareholders are entitled to. It also specifies shareholder con-

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    330 journal of political economy

    trol rights, but we shall assume that shareholder dispersion is suchthat outside shareholders never exert any effective control over the

    owner-manager. We also assume that the private benefits of controlare large enough that the owner-manager always decides to continueat date t 1 if given the choice.

    Bank debt.A bank loan specifies a repayment schedule {R1, R 2}.If the firm defaults on its first-period repayment, the bank is able toobserve the type of firm (through monitoring) and decides whetherto liquidate or let the firm continue. If it lets the firm continue, itappropriates all last-period returns (through, say, a debt/equityswap). Since the bank observes the firms type at date t 1, it lets

    the firm continue if and only if the firm is good. Thus the maindistinction between bank debt and bonds is that bank debt is moreflexible (or easier to restructure).

    Banks, however, are subject to minimum capital requirements. Ifthey want to expand lending, they need to also raise additional costlyoutside equity financing. This is one source of intermediation cost.In our model we emphasize only this cost and abstract from othercosts (e.g., those of setting up and maintaining a branch network).To keep things simple and realistic, we assume that deposits are

    fully insured in return for complying with minimum capital re-quirements. We also take the unit intermediation cost, denoted by( 0), to be exogenous.

    When firms combine different instruments, we assume that thepriority structure in bankruptcy is the one most commonly observedin practice, where bank debt has priority over bonds, and equityholders are residual claimants.

    We shall see below how this priority structure has a significantimpact on the way the different layers of debt are combined. In par-

    ticular, we show that it is the main source (in our model) behindbanks incentives to securitize (by issuing a senior asset-backed secu-rity). Indeed, the existing priority structure between bank loans andbonds limits a firms ability to combine bank debt with bonds effi-ciently (so as to reduce intermediation costs) since by taking on ju-nior bonds it creates incentives for banks to liquidate the firm inef-ficiently when it is in financial distress.

    The reason is that the bank can maintain priority in repaymentover bonds only if the firm is liquidated. If it restructures its debt

    and lets the firm continue, it effectively relinquishes its right to berepaid first at time t 1. More concretely, if the outstanding bondclaims at date t 1 are R1 and the total bank loan repayment is R1,a bank deciding to rescue a good firm still has to pay bondholdersthe amount R1 at date t 1. It therefore prefers to liquidate an Hfirm in financial distress (and accelerate its debt repayments) when-

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    equity, bonds, and bank debt 331

    ever min{A L, R 1} H R1 L. The efficient decision, how-ever, is not to liquidate when cash flows at date t 2 are H. In other

    words, a bank may prefer inefficient liquidation since its claim takespriority over bond claims at date t 1 only under liquidation. If thebank decides to continue, the bond payments at date t 1 must behonored fully and the bank passes up an opportunity to take fullpriority over bonds.

    Securitization in our model arises in order to undo this prioritystructure by replacing a security with lower priority (the bond) byone with higher priority (the asset-backed security). In other words,instead of inefficiently combining junior bonds and senior bank

    debt, banks can do better by undoing this priority ordering throughsecuritization.In the next section we shall determine firms choice of financing

    for an exogenously given intermediation cost, . This allows us toderive the aggregate demand for bank credit.

    III. Firms Choice of Financing: Equity, Bonds,or Bank Loans

    Having defined each instrument in the previous section, we beginour analysis of the choice of capital structure by outlining the maintrade-offs involved in the three modes of funding. Since in ourmodel the dilution cost occurs only on period 2 cash flows, this givesdifferent advantages to the different types of instruments the firmis able to use.

    1. Under equity financing, there are no bankruptcy costs. Butthere may be higher dilution costs for good firms since the firm isselling claims on cash flows that depend on the borrowers type.

    2. Under bond financing, dilution costs will be lower. But whenthe firms debt is high, it may be forced into bankruptcy and liquida-tion. It is efficient to liquidate the firm when it is bad (p2 0), butnot when it is good (p2 1). Under bond financing, however, thefirm is always liquidated following default, so that there is a bank-ruptcy cost for good firms in making large bond issues.2

    3. As with bond financing, under a bank loan the firm may alsobe forced into bankruptcy. But unlike bond financing, bankruptcywill not give rise to inefficient liquidation. The bank, endowed with

    superior information and with a greater ability to restructure its2 In practice, some bond issues can be restructured so as to avoid inefficient liqui-

    dation. However, bond restructurings are typically more difficult and costlier thanbank loan reschedulings. We magnify this difference between bonds and bank loansin our model by assuming that bonds cannot be restructured at all and bank loanscan be renegotiated costlessly.

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    loans, will choose to liquidate only bad firms. Thus bank lendingdominates bond financing in terms of expected bankruptcy costs. It

    also dominates in terms of dilution costs since, following a restruc-turing, the bank knows the true continuation value of the firm andis therefore able to price it correctly. The main drawback of banklending is the cost of intermediation that must be borne by the firm.

    The main distinguishing features of equity, bonds, and bank debtthat we have chosen to emphasize are, thus, that bank loans are eas-ier to restructure than bond issues and that equity issues (whetherfor firms or banks) involve higher dilution costs.

    Before we describe a firms optimal capital structure choice, it is

    helpful to begin our analysis by first considering, as a benchmark,a more general optimal financial contracting problem, where thefirm is not restricted to standard debt or equity instruments but isable to issue contingent claims.

    A. The H-Optimal Contingent Contract

    We shall consider the optimal contracting problem from the per-spective of an H firm that knows that any contract it offers to finan-

    ciers will be mimicked by L firms, so that it is always pooled with Lfirms in the same observable risk class.3

    In order to compare these contracts not only to bonds but alsoto loans, we shall consider both nonmonitored contingent contractsrelated to bond contracts and monitored contingent contracts akinto bank loans.

    The optimal nonmonitored contracting problem for an Hfirm isto offer (1) a feasible repayment schedule, {RH1 , R

    L1, R

    H2 , R

    L2} with

    RH1 H, RL1 L, R

    H2 H, and R

    L2 L, where R

    Kt is the time t

    repayment of a firm with a

    Kreturn at time t; and (2) a continuationdecision at date t 1 that is given by the probability of continuationx1, to solve

    max p1(H RH1 ) (1 p1)(L R

    L1) x1(H R

    H2 B)

    subject to

    p1RH1 (1 p1)R

    L1 x1R

    H2 (1 )x1R

    L2 (1 x1)A 1.

    3 The reason why L firms imitate H firms is that a different strategy would revealthat they are Lfirms with negative net present value projects. Moreover, we assumethat it is not possible to bribe Lfirms to reveal themselves ex ante since any positivebribe would be a free lunch for any firm pretending to be an Lfirm. In principle,Hfirms could attempt to partially reveal themselves by offering a menu of contractsthat would support a semiseparating equilibrium. We shall not consider this possibil-ity since such outcomes can be supported only by ad hoc beliefs.

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    equity, bonds, and bank debt 333

    It is easy to see that the firms nonmonitored efficient choice isx1 1 ifB H (1 )L A.

    Determining the optimal monitored contingent contract leads toa similar problem, except for the fact that the continuation decisionis made after observing the firms type. In the optimal contract, onlytype Lfirms will be liquidated, and the bank will obtain the liquida-tion value A (A L). In addition, there is a monitoring cost .

    Whether under monitored or nonmonitored finance, it is obvious(and easy to show) that the optimal contract is such that RH1 H,RL1 L, and R

    L2 L, setting R

    H2 R

    L2 equal to the smallest possible

    value satisfying the individual rationality constraint of the investor.

    Indeed, this is the contract that minimizes dilution costs. For futurereference we highlight the optimal contract under monitored andnonmonitored finance in the two propositions below.

    Denote by I p1H (1 p1)L L the cash flow stream onwhich there is no asymmetric information and consequently no in-formation dilution cost. Suppose that I 1, so that the firm mustpay dilution costs on the portion 1 I of the funds it raises. Thenwe obtain the following result for nonmonitored finance.

    Proposition 1. In the H-optimal financial contract with no moni-

    toring, when I

    1, the firm sets maximum period 1 repaymentsRH1 H; RL1 L and maximum period 2 risk-free repayment

    RL2 L, and it minimizes the dilution costs in the following ways:(1) The firm sets

    RH2 1 p1H (1 p1)L (1 )L

    and x1 1 ifBH (1 )L A. In this case the firm incurs

    a positive dilution cost of (R

    H

    2

    L)(1

    )

    (1

    I

    )(1

    )/

    ,and there is inefficient continuation of bad firms. (2) The firm setsx1 0 ifH (1 )L B A. In this case the type H firmincurs no dilution cost but pays a positive bankruptcy cost.

    The proof is obvious.The value of the dilution cost in the first case is quite intuitive

    since the dilution cost per dollar raised is (1 )/ and since thereis no dilution cost on the portion of funds raised I. In the secondcase the model reduces to a one-period model. In the next sections

    we shall disregard this last case.When there is monitoring, the dilution-free portion of cash flowsis larger and equal to I (A L), since by monitoring a firmsreturn the bank is always able to obtain H in the favorable case andA in the unfavorable one. Suppose that I (A L) 1, so thatthe firm must incur dilution costs on the portion 1 I A L.

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    334 journal of political economy

    Then the optimal contract under monitored finance is given by thefollowing proposition.

    Proposition 2. Optimal financial contract with monitoring.If I

    (A L) 1, the firm sets maximum period 1 repayments, RH1

    H, RL1 L, maximum period 2 risk-free repayment R

    L2 L, and

    RH2 1 p1H (1 p1)L (1 )A

    .

    It incurs a positive dilution and intermediation cost of

    (1 I A L)(1 )

    so that the intermediation cost implies a cost(1 )/ for theH firm. The liquidation policy is efficient, with x1 0 if and only ifa type L firm is observed.

    The proof is obvious.Again the dilution cost can be reduced by making a maximum

    payment at time t 1. The comparison of the optimal contractsunder monitored and nonmonitored finance immediately revealsthat monitored finance reduces dilution costs but implies paying theintermediation cost . Depending on the relative importance ofthese costs, a firm may favor monitored or nonmonitored finance.

    It is also clear from the description of the optimal contract undernonmonitored finance that it cannot be replicated by any combina-tion of equity, bank debt, or bonds. Indeed, to replicate the contractthe firm must (i) issue safe debt worth 2L, (ii) issue 100 percentoutside equity, and (iii) give the manager a call option on all theoutside equity to be exercised at date t 2 at the exercise priceRH2 L. Only managers of good firms will then exercise this optionand get a payoffH RH2 as under the optimal contract.4 In the sameway it is impossible to replicate the optimal monitored finance con-tract with a bank loan.

    In the main body of the paper we shall allow firms to choose onlyamong equity, bonds, and bank debt. Thus we do not allow firms toexploit the best available financial options. However, it will becomeclear from the analysis below that the loss in efficiency from rulingout exotic financial instruments is small in our model, so that ourrestriction to standard financial instruments is not very strong. More-

    4 It is interesting that this contract resembles in some ways standard venture capitalcontracts in which the venture capital fund often holds close to 100 percent of theequity but gives the manager a call option to buy all or most of the funds stake.

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    equity, bonds, and bank debt 335

    over, the results we obtain under this restriction are easier to relateto empirical evidence.5

    B. The Mix among Equity, Bonds, and Bank Loans

    As above, we first characterize the optimal capital structure withoutmonitoring and then ask which firms would prefer monitored(bank) finance.

    1. The Bond-Equity Choice

    It is clear from the analysis above that firms should issue no less than2L in riskless debt no matter what form of additional financing theychoose to obtain, provided, of course, that this debt is senior to anyother claim issued. If the firms primary consideration is to avoidbankruptcy at date t 1, it has two financial alternatives: either issuesafe bonds worth 2L and raise the remaining funds with equity, orissue the amount of debt I 2L (H L), which is default-free at date t 1 (the firm is able to repay the bond at date t 1 with the proceeds of a new bond issue based on period 2 expected

    cash flows). Either option involves a dilution cost on the pledgedsecond-period cash flows. The following lemma determines underwhat conditions the first mode is preferable to the second.

    Lemma 1. If equity is issued, then it is optimal for an H firm toissue the maximum amount of first-period default-free bonds,2L (H L), if 1 p1. If 1 p1, then it is optimalfor the firm to issue only an amount of debt 2L.

    Proof. See the Appendix.The intuition behind this lemma is as follows. Up to the level I

    2

    L

    (

    H

    L), debt financing does not give rise to default atdate t 1, even when first-period profits are L, because the firmis able to raise (H L) by selling claims to second-period cashflows. But selling these claims in the event of a low-profit outcomeat date t 1 implies that the firm will bear maximum dilution costs.Therefore, if the probability of a low-profit outcome, 1 p1, is large,the firm will abstain from issuing more than 2L in debt. Lemma 1gives the precise necessary and sufficient condition for risky bondfinancing to have higher dilution cost than equity.

    For the remainder of the paper we shall restrict attention to the

    5 In practice there may be many reasons why firms do not fully optimize theirchoice of financing mix. It is beyond the scope of this paper to address the questionwhy standard financial instruments such as equity, bonds, and bank loans are sowidely used.

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    336 journal of political economy

    case in which dilution costs are higher under equity financing bymaking the following assumption.6

    Assumption 3.

    1

    p1.We shall also focus on the case of inefficient liquidation by makingthe following assumption.

    Assumption 4. H (1 )L A.All H firms issuing equity then also issue I 2L (H L)

    worth of bonds. Under this assumption we can reduce the choiceof an H firms nonmonitored financial structure to two options: ei-ther issue only risky bonds (B), which the firm may default on inperiod t 1, or issue equity with maximum first-period default-free

    debt, 2L

    (H

    L) (E). The reason is that raising an amountof bonds superior to I will combine the cost of inefficient liquida-tion with the dilution cost of equity.

    Firms preference between risky bonds and equity generally de-pends on the first-period probability of success, p1. Issuing riskybonds implies that in the event of bankruptcy the firm is liquidatedand incurs a deadweight loss of(H L) (A L). Alternatively,issuing equity with safe debt involves an additional dilution cost forthe funds raised above I 2L (H L). The choice between

    risky bond financing and equity with default-free debt depends onthe relative importance of these costs. Specifically, we show that itdepends on the sign of

    (1 )(1 I) (1 p1)[(HL) (AL)]. (1)

    When is negative, risky bond financing is preferred. Note that is decreasing in p1 and is negative for high values of p1.

    In addition, whenever bond financing is feasible, equity financingis also feasible since it does not involve any bankruptcy inefficiency.

    Thus, when bond financing is feasible but is a dominated choice,equity financing is always available as an option. The choice of fi-nancing between these two instruments is thus driven only by de-mand side considerations as long as bond financing is feasible. If itis not feasible, then firms may be constrained to issue equity. Thisdiscussion suggests that the following proposition must hold.

    Proposition 3. Under assumptions 3 and 4, there exists ap1 [1 , 1) such that 100 percent bond financing is preferredby a p1 firm to issuing a combination of equity and bonds if and only

    ifp1

    p

    1. In addition, if 100 percent bond financing is feasible, thena combination of equity and bonds is also feasible.

    6 This is not a very restrictive assumption. However, one possible financial classwe exclude with this assumption is risky (low-p1) firms financed with junk bonds.This financial class could be obtained in our model if we did not make assumptions3 and 4.

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    equity, bonds, and bank debt 337

    Proof. See the Appendix.Proposition 3 establishes that the firms with the safest first-period

    cash flows turn to bond financing as their main source of outsidefinance. These are the so-called investment grade firms. Firms withriskier first-period cash flows prefer (or are constrained) to issuesome equity. Notice also that, for some parameter constellations, in (1) is negative even for the smallest value of p1. In that extremecase, all firms turn to (risky) bond financing and no firms issue eq-uity. Firms may be constrained to issue equity if

    p1[H (H L)] (1 p1)A L 1.

    Then some p1 firms that prefer to issue 100 percent in bonds areforced to issue equity and an amount I of bonds.

    2. Direct versus Intermediated Finance withSecuritization

    When we introduce the additional option of bank financing, a firmschoice of capital structure is roughly as follows: (i) firms with p1 closeto one choose bond financing over bank lending since their ex-

    pected bankruptcy cost is negligible and outweighs the cost of inter-mediation; (ii) for all other firms the bank loan option may be attrac-tive provided that intermediation costs are not too high. As in ourcomparison between bonds and equity, one potential difficulty thatwe face is determining which mode of financing involves higher dilu-tion costs. Bank loans, just as bond financing, may actually involvehigher dilution costs than equity when is low. Although this is atheoretical possibility, it is not entirely plausible empirically. Accord-ingly, we shall rule out this possibility by making the following as-

    sumption.Assumption 5. (H A)/(H L).As we already hinted at earlier, when bank loans are senior to

    bonds, the possibilities for combining bank loans with bonds whilepreserving the banks ability to renegotiate efficiently are limited.The reason is that if bank loans are senior, even the riskless fraction2L cannot be securitized as riskless.

    Of course, it is possible to avoid this inefficiency by lengtheningthe maturity of the bond and reducing bond repayments at date t

    1, but in our model this involves incurring higher dilution costs. Weshow below that instead of incurring this dilution cost, it is moreefficient for a firm not to combine bond financing with bank lendingbut instead to rely on the bank to securitize a portion of its loan.This involves a transfer of priority rights for the bank to the buyersof the securitized claims for the portion of securitized cash flows.

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    338 journal of political economy

    What portion of the loan should the bank securitize? The bankshould securitize at least the portion 2L since this involves no dilu-

    tion cost. Whether it should securitize the additional amount(H L) depends on the relative weight of dilution and intermedi-ation costs, as stated precisely in lemma 2 below.

    We do not allow banks to securitize more than the default-freeportion of their cash flow I (H L) 2L. In practice, theoverwhelming fraction of securitized loans are of the highest riskquality, and a number of institutional features of asset-backed securi-ties or collateralized loan obligations give banks incentives to securi-tize only the safest loans (see Zweig 1989; Fabozzi and Carlson 1992).

    Our assumption is thus in line with observed securitization practice.The main difficulty with securitizing a fraction of a firms debts be-yond Iis that if the firm defaults, the bank must step in as a guarantorto cover the securitized obligations that cannot be met with thefirms cash flow. To do this the bank must set aside reserves to beavailable in the event of default. While such an arrangement is feasi-ble and desirable in principle, it is somewhat complex and mostlyuntried in practice. For all these reasons we have decided to ruleout this possibility.

    Lemma 2. There exists a threshold

    such that, for

    , it isalways optimal for the bank to securitize its loans up to the level ofnonliquidation risk I. For , it is optimal to securitize only 2L.In addition, a firm never strictly prefers to hold a combination ofbonds and bank loans.

    Proof. See the Appendix.Lemma 2 establishes, first, that banks facing capital requirement

    constraints (or other fund-raising costs) will make use of all opportu-nities to economize on costly capital and other external funds. Note

    that it is crucial to think of intermediation costs as costs of raisingfunds for banks to explain securitization. If intermediation costswere simply monitoring costs, as in Holmstrom and Tirole (1997)or Repullo and Suarez (1997), there would be no benefit from secu-ritizing bank loans. Second, lemma 2 establishes that if a firm issuesan amount of bonds such that it is exposed to a risk of inefficientliquidation, it is not profitable for this firm to also take on a bankloan since this implies incurring an intermediation cost without ob-taining greater financial flexibility.

    To our knowledge, we highlight here a new aspect of securitiza-tion linked to the prevailing priority structure of debt. The standardexplanation of securitization emphasizes the pooling of small loansto create a sufficiently liquid secondary market, as well as economieson banks regulatory capital. This liquidity creation role of banksmay well be the most important aspect of securitization of mort-gages, but our model suggests that for larger loans to firms (which

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    equity, bonds, and bank debt 339

    are increasingly securitized) a necessary condition for securitizationmay be the inversion of the priority ordering between bonds and

    bank debt.To keep the model tractable and to better reflect reality, we havelimited securitization to the safe portion of the bank loan. Is it con-ceivable that securitization can go beyond that and that the wholeloan can be securitized? In that case we would see an inefficient formof financingnonrenegotiable debenturesbeing replaced by amore efficient form of financingrenegotiable secured debt. Inother words, this form of securitization would be a way of contractingaround the potential inefficiencies of the Trust Indenture Act.7 Our

    analysis thus suggests that, if the market for asset-backed securitiesdevelops enough and becomes sufficiently liquid, an arbitrage op-portunity may open up for banks to offer firms the same flexibleloan at a lower cost, and in the limit at the same cost as bonds, whichfall under the Trust Indenture Act. Banks expansion into this mar-ket would then be limited only by the costs of holding reserves tobe able to act as guarantor or, possibly, firms desire not to be ableto renegotiate bonds as a self-disciplining device.

    Moving on to the determination of the demand for bank loans

    (with securitization), we can show that, under assumptions 25, onlyfirms with low p1 choose bank loans over direct financing.Proposition 4. Under assumptions 25, the demand for bank

    loans is the measure ofp1 firms in the interval [1 , p*1 ()], whichwe denote by([1 , p*1 ()]); p*1 () is decreasing in , withp*1 (0) 1 and p*1 () 1 for any c.

    Proof. See the Appendix.In other words, the demand for bank loans comes from the firms

    with the greatest underlying cash flow risk. If the intermediation cost

    is zero (

    0), all firms in the economy seek bank financing and([1 , p*1 (0)]) ([1 , 1]). As intermediation costs rise,the demand for bank lending goes down: d([1 , p*1 ()])/d 0. Furthermore, for a positive intermediation cost, the safest firmsprefer to issue bonds. Equity may or may not be issued by some firmsdepending on whether p*1 () p1 or p*1 () p1, where p1 is thethreshold level defined in proposition 3.

    IV. Intermediation Costs and Capital Structure

    The previous section characterizes the demand structure for eq-uity, bonds, and bank loans: For a given intermediation cost, firms

    7 The Trust Indenture Act of 1939 requires unanimous debt holder consent beforea firm can alter the principal, interest, or maturity of its public debt. Inevitably, thisrequirement makes it much more difficult to renegotiate a bond issue.

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    340 journal of political economy

    in the interval [p1, 1] demand financing in the form of a bond issue,and firms in the interval [1 , p*1 ()] demand bank loans. In addi-

    tion, if is such thatp*1 ()

    p

    1, then firms in the interval [p*1 (),p1] demand financing in the form of a determinate bond/equityratio.

    In this section we derive an equilibrium in the capital market bymatching this demand structure with an aggregate supply of bankloans for a given spread (or intermediation cost) . To keep themodel tractable, we simply assume an exogenous supply functionS(), which is continuous and strictly increasing in .8

    The main point of this section is to show how capital structures

    and segmentation vary as intermediation costs evolve.If is high, then equilibrium segmentation may be such that apositive interval of firms [1 , pB1()] that prefer bank lending getno financing at all or are forced to get equity financing. The cutoffpB1() is defined by banks break-even constraint

    (1 *)(1 I) pB1(*)(H L)

    [1 pB1(*)](1 )(A L).

    Firms with risks 1 p1 higher than 1 pB1() are not profitable

    enough to cover banks high intermediation costs. At best they maybe able to get financing in the form of an equity stake. These firmsare then constrained to issue the least desirable instrument, equity,involving the highest dilution cost because no other feasible formof financing is available.9

    Equity financing by high-risk firms in a nonempty interval [pE1,pB1()] arises in equilibrium when spreads are such that the followingconditions hold: (1) Banks make losses even if they impose a maxi-mum repayment of R 1 2H and appropriate the entire cash flow

    generated by a firm with p1 [1 , pB1()],

    p1[H L (H L)] (1 p1)[L H (1 )A].

    This is possible for equilibrium spreads , where is definedby the equation

    (1 )(1 I) (1 )(H L) (1 )(A L).

    8 It is possible to derive such a function endogenously. The capital market equilib-rium is then given by some equilibrium spread * such that S(*) ([1 ,p*1 (*)]). In fact we propose one derivation based on informational dilution costsfor banks in Bolton and Freixas (1998).

    9 This may be one reason why Myerss pecking order theory of financing breaksdown for the riskiest firms: investors are willing to invest in such firms only if theyget an equity stake and can share the upside when the firm succeeds.

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    equity, bonds, and bank debt 341

    Fig. 2.Equilibrium with high spreads

    (2) Investors break-even risk under equity financing is greater thanbanks break-even risk. That is,

    pE1 pB1(*)

    or

    1 I

    H L

    (1 *)(1 I) (1 )(A L)

    (H L) (1 )(A L),

    or, if we rearrange,

    (1 )(A L) 11 I 1H L.Strictly speaking, firms with risks in [pE1, p

    B1()] combine equity fi-

    nancing with some riskless debt financing. In a richer model, whichcould distinguish venture capital financing as a separate mode, thesefirms might well be thought of as risk classes seeking venture capitalfinancing.

    In sum, when is large, firms are partitioned into the followingfive financial classes (as illustrated in fig. 2): (1) firms with p1 [1 , pE1] get no funding, (2) firms with p1 [p

    E1, p

    B1 ()] are equity

    financed, (3) firms with p1 [pB

    1(), p*1 ()] are bank financed, (4)firms with p1 [p*1 (), p1] are financed by equity and default-freebonds, and (5) firms with p1 [p1, 1] are bond financed.

    Alternatively, when the supply of bank loans is large relative todemand, so that is small, equilibrium segmentation may be suchthat the market for outside equity financing is negligible or possiblyeven disappears. When is small, firms may be partitioned into asfew as two financial classes (as illustrated in fig. 3): In this equilib-

    Fig. 3.Equilibrium with low spreads

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    342 journal of political economy

    rium, (1) firms with p1 [max[1 ; pB1()], p*1 ()] are bank fi-

    nanced, and (2) firms with p1 [p*1 (), 1] are bond financed.10

    Thus both firms capital structure choice and the capital marketequilibrium may vary considerably with the overall efficiency of thebanking sector. If it takes a small spread to generate a large supplyof loanable funds by banks (or the market for asset-backed securitiesis very liquid), then, other things being equal, the banking sectorwill be dominant relative to primary equity or bond markets andfirms will have high ratios of bank debt to equity. In other words,to be able to explain firms capital structure choices in practice, itmay be essential to know the cost of intermediation. Partial equilib-

    rium theories of capital structure determination, which are usuallybased implicitly on the assumption of frictionless capital markets,may thus be potentially misleading.

    Our model also generates two interesting comparative statics re-sults. First, as the cost of intermediation decreases, the market fornew equity issues tapers off. Second, as decreases (so that dilutioncosts go down), the market for new equity issues develops. In bothcases, these results seem to be broadly consistent with the existenceof hot issue markets initially pointed out by Ibbotson and Jaffee

    (1975). The model predicts that as bank spreads vary, the new-issuesmarket may develop or dry up, thus generating the observed cyclicalpattern of the volume of new issues.

    Finally, if one compares the U.S. financial market structure withthat prevailing in Europe and Japan, one finds that bank financingis relatively larger in Europe and Japan and that in the United Statesfirms rely more on bond and equity financing. Within our modelthese striking differences might be explained by pointing either atintermediation costs (or spreads) (with those in Europe being rela-

    tively lower) or at equity dilution costs (with those in the UnitedStates being lower), or possibly even at the distribution of firmsacross risk classes (with firms in the United States being mostly con-centrated in the safe to medium-risk categories). The most plausibleof these three potential explanations seems to be that dilution costs(or more generally the costs of issuing securities) are substantiallylower in the United States than in continental Europe.

    V. Conclusion

    This paper proposes a simple model of the capital market and theinteraction between real and financial sectors built around two gen-

    10 In the extreme situation in which * 0, there is only one financial class, withall firms getting all their funding through bank loans.

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    equity, bonds, and bank debt 343

    eral observations: (i) Firms face informational dilution costs whenthey issue equity; they attempt to reduce that cost by issuing bonds

    or taking out a bank loan. (ii) Bank lending is more flexible andmore expensive than bond financing (because of intermediationcosts); as a result, only those firms with a sufficiently high demandfor flexibility choose bank lending over bond financing.

    These observations are widely accepted, and a growing body ofempirical evidence supports these two hypotheses. It is remarkablethat the simple model developed here, which abstracts from manyother relevant considerations, generates qualitative predictionsabout the equilibrium in the capital market that are broadly consis-

    tent with most of the stylized facts on investment and firm financinguncovered by recent empirical studies. Some obvious but importantconsiderations that have been left out of the model are the dimen-sions of firm size or age, as well as the fixed costs of issuing securities(equity or bonds). Introducing these considerations is likely tostrengthen our general conclusions if one equates size and age withlower risk (as seems plausible). Our model would then lead to thegeneral conclusion that the bigger (or the more mature) the firm,the bigger the share of securities in its financial structure. This is

    broadly consistent with stylized facts.The basic structure of the model proposed here thus seems to bea good basis for exploring further the interface between financialand real sectors and to address the question of the effects of bankingregulation on the entire system. An important avenue for furtherresearch, in particular, is to explore in greater detail the effect onaggregate activity of changes in bank liquidity and to analyze theeffects of different forms of monetary policy on the real sector in afully closed general equilibrium model, which would trace the ef-

    fects of monetary policy on both firms and households. Finally, aninteresting question to consider is whether the different overallstructures of the financial systems of Germany or Japan versus theUnited States and the United Kingdom have important conse-quences for how monetary shocks get transmitted to the real sec-tor.

    Mathematical Appendix

    Proof of Lemma 1We have to compare the cost of funds under the two financing modes fora firm that has already issued the amount of riskless debt 2L.

    Raising $1 beyond 2L costs

    1 p1 (1 p1)R,

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    344 journal of political economy

    where R is the second-period repayment. But this implies R 1/. Thedilution cost results when the H firm has to repay R 1, an event thatoccurs with probability 1 p1. Therefore, the dilution cost equals

    (1 p1)1 1 1 p1

    (1 ).

    On the other hand, for a firm with debt 2L, raising $1 in equity implieshanding over a percentage a of the firms equity such that

    1 a[p1(H L) (H L)],

    which for an H firm amounts to giving up

    a[p1(H L) (H L)]in expected profits, so that the dilution cost of this alternative mode offinancing is

    p1 1

    p1 1

    1

    p1 .

    Simplifying, we obtain that raising equity with safe debt 2L is dominatedby equity with maximum safe debt 2L (H L) if and only if

    1p1

    1

    p1

    ,

    that is, if and only if 1 p1. Q.E.D.

    Proof of Proposition 3

    We begin by computing the maximum repayment R1 L for which thefirm faces no default risk. With probability 1 p1 the firm has cash flowL in period 1 and can raise at most(H L) in new bonds to cover the

    cash shortfall R1 L, so that(H L) R1 L (A1)

    and the investors zero-profit condition is

    I 2L (H L). (A2)

    1. An Hfirms profit when issuing a fraction aof equity (and Iin bonds)then is

    WE (1 a)[p1(H R1) p1(H L)]. (A3)

    Replacing R1, we obtain

    WE (1 a)p1(2 )(H L), (A4)

    where a is such that exactly the additional amount 1 I is raised:

    1 I a[p1(H R1) p1(H L)]. (A5)

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    equity, bonds, and bank debt 345

    Again replacing R1, we obtain

    1 I a[p1(H L)], (A6)

    and therefore,

    WE (2 )[p1(H L) (1 I)]. (A7)

    2. An H firm issuing bonds has to promise a repayment R1 in period 1such that

    1 p1R1 (1 p1)A L. (A8)

    Therefore, the H firms profits under bond financing are

    WB p1(H R1) p1(H L). (A9)

    Replacing R1, we obtain

    WB 2p1(H L) (1 p1)(A L) (1 2L). (A10)

    3. If an H firm can get both sources of funding, the optimal fundingmode is then determined by the sign of WE WB:

    p1(H L) (1 I)(2 )(A11)

    (1 I) (H L) (1 p1)(A L),

    that is,

    (1 I)(1 ) (1 p1)[(H L) (A L)]. (A12)

    Therefore, under assumption 4, is decreasing with p1, and in additionwe have 0, for p1 1.

    4. A firm can get enough funding with equity if by pledging no morethan a 1 of its equity it gets enough funding for its investment. Fromequation (A6) this is possible if

    p1 1 I

    H L pE1.

    (Notice that assumption 1 implies pE1 1.)5. A firm can get enough funding by issuing bonds if by pledging no

    more than R1 H it gets enough funds. From equation (A8) this requiresthat

    p1 1 A LH A

    pB1 .

    6. The condition pB1 pE1 is then equivalent to

    (1 A L)(H L) (H A)(1 I)

    or to

    A[(1 I) (H L)] (H L)L L 2HL H(H L).

    Rearranging this yields

    A(1 I) (HL)[A (1 ) LH] (HL)L L 2(L)2

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    346 journal of political economy

    and

    A(1 I) (H L)[(1 )L H A] L(1 I),

    which is always true since A L. Q.E.D.

    Proof of Lemma 2

    Consider first securitization of the amountI 2L (H L). Then anH firms payoff under bank financing is

    WBL p1(H R1), (A13)

    with R1 given by

    (1 )(1 I) p1(R1 L) (1 p1)(1 )(A L). (A14)

    If only 2L are securitized, the firms payoff becomes

    W BL p1(H R 1) p1(H R 2), (A15)

    with R1 and R2 given by

    (1 )(1 2L) p1(R1 L) p1(R 2 L)(A16)

    (1 p1)[(1 )(A L) (H L)].

    To minimize dilution costs, the optimal contract is thus either (1) R2 Land R1 H or (2) L R 2 H and R 1 H.

    Subtraction of (A14) from (A16) yields( p1)(H L) p1(R1 R 1) p1(R2 L)

    so that

    WBL WBL p1(R 1 R 1) p1(H R2).

    Substituting for R1 and R1, we get

    ( p1)(H L) p1(R2 L) p1(H R 2)

    or, rearranging, we get

    (H L)[ (1 )p1] (1 )p1(R 2 L).

    Thus, for [(1 )/]p1, is positive; for 0, it is negative. Bycontinuity there exists a value * such that 0. Since R 2 is an increasingfunction of, we have 0 if and only if *.

    The second part of lemma 2 is straightforward. Given that a combinationof risky bonds and bank loans triggers liquidation in the event of a first-period low return L, it is suboptimal to take on a bank loan that costs when the same outcome can be obtained by taking on bonds that do notinvolve any intermediation cost. Q.E.D.

    Proof of Proposition 4

    We compare the best funding terms a firm is able to get with a bank loan(BL) and show that the difference in firm profit is always a decreasingfunction ofp1. Several cases need to be considered, depending on whether

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    equity, bonds, and bank debt 347

    banks securitize all or only part of their safe liabilities, whether there aresecond-period repayments, and whether the comparison is made with bondfinancing or equity financing.

    1. Securitized Bank Loans of(H L) 2L

    Bonds versus bank loans.There are two subcases to consider.A. The bond has a first-period repaymentR1 and a second-period repay-

    ment ofL. The bondholders break-even condition is then

    1 p1(R1 L) (1 p1)(A L) 2L. (A17)

    The equivalent break-even condition under bank lending is (A14). Sub-

    tracting (A14) from (A17), we obtain1 (1 )(1 I) p1(R1 R 1) (1 p1)(A L) 2L. (A18)

    Relabeling all terms independent of p1 in a constant K0, we can rewriteexpression (A18) as

    p1(R1 R1) K0 p1(A L). (A19)

    The expected profit for an Hfirm financed with a securitized bank loanis given by (A13). Under bond financing it is given by

    WB p1(H R1) p1(H L). (A20)

    Consequently,

    WBL WB p1(R1 R1) p1(H L). (A21)

    Using (A19), we obtain

    K0 p1[(H L) (A L)], (A22)

    so that is decreasing in p1. In addition, replacing p1 1 in (A18) allowsus to obtain R1 R 1 (H L) (1 I). Substituting in (A21), weobtain

    (1 )(H L) (1 I) 0, (A23)

    so that bond financing is preferred for high values of p1.B. The bond has a first-period repayment of H and a second-period

    repayment of R2. The bondholders break-even condition is then

    1 p1(HL) (1 p1)(AL) p1(R2 L) 2L, (A17)

    from which we obtain

    [p1(R2 L)]

    p1 1

    (H

    A)

    0.

    We obtain a similar expression from equation (A14):

    [p1(R1 L)]

    p1 (1 )(A L) 0.

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    The expected profit for an H firm under bond financing is now given by

    WB p1(H R2). (A20)

    Consequently, is now given by WBL WB p1(R2 R 1),

    which is again decreasing in p1.To see that when p1 1 we have 0, note that

    (R2 R1) 1 2L (H L) (1 )(1 I)

    is negative when 1 , since then

    (R2 R 1) 1 2L (H L) (1 I)

    or(R2 R 1) (1 )(H L) 0.

    Equity versus bank loans.Equations (A14) and (A13) remain unchanged.The payoff of an equity-financed H firm is

    WE (2 )[p1(H L) (1 I)] (A24)

    so that

    dWE

    dp1(2 )(H L). (A25)

    From equation (A13) we have

    dWBL

    dp1 H

    d(p1R1)

    dp1. (A26)

    Differentiating (A14), we obtain

    d(p1R 1)

    dp1 (1 )(A L) L

    so that

    dWBL

    dp1 H L (1 )(A L).

    Thus for WBL WE, we have

    d

    dp1 (1 )[(H L) (A L)] 0.

    2. Securitized Bank Loans of 2L

    Bonds versus bank loans.Note that now both bonds and bank loans mayhave first- and second-period repayments so that there are four subcasesto consider.

    A. The bond has first-period repaymentR1 and second-period repaymentL, and the bank loan specifies first-period repayment R 1 and second-period repaymentL: The bondholders break-even condition is equation

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    equity, bonds, and bank debt 349

    (A17) as before. But the equivalent break-even condition under bank lend-ing is now equation (A16). Subtracting (A17) from (A16), we obtain

    (1 2L) p1(R1 R1) p1(R2 L) (A18) (1 p1)(H A).

    The expression for is now obtained from equations (A15) and (A20):

    WBL WB p1(R1 R 1) p1(L R 2).

    Since we have R 2 L,

    WBL WB p1(R1 R 1).

    And since[p1(R1 R 1)]

    p1 (H A),

    from equation (A18) we have established that is decreasing with p1. Fi-nally, when p1 1, equation (A18) yields (1 2L) 0.

    B. The bond has first-period repaymentR1 and second-period repaymentL, but the bank loan specifies first-period repaymentR1 H and second-period repaymentL R2 H. Trivially, in this case all firms prefer bondfinancing.

    C. The bond has first-period repaymentHand second-period repaymentR2, but the bank loan specifies first-period repayment R 1 and second-period repaymentL. Equations (A15) and (A20) then imply

    WBL WB p1(H R 1) p1(H R2) 0,

    so that the cheaper bank loans are preferred by all firms here.D. The bond has first-period repayment H and second-period repay-

    ment R2, and the bank loan specifies first-period repayment R 1 H andsecond-period repaymentL R2 H. Here

    WBL WB p1(R2 R2).

    Subtracting equation (A17) from equation (A16) yields

    (1 2L) p1(R 2 R2) (1 p1)(H A). (A27)

    As before,

    [p1(R2 R 2)]

    p1 (H A) 0

    implies that is decreasing.Equity versus bank loans.Here again, two subcases must be considered.A. R 2 L and R 1 H: From equation (A16) we derive

    [p1(R 1 L)]

    p1 (1 )(H A) (H L),

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    350 journal of political economy

    so that

    WBL

    p1 (2 )(H L) (1 )(H A).

    Using equation (A25), we obtain /p1 0.B. R1 H and L R2 H: Again, from equation (A16) we obtain

    [p1(R 2 L)]

    p1 (1 )(A L) (1 )(H L),

    and therefore,

    WBL

    p1 (H L)

    1

    [(1 )(A L) (1 )(H L)],

    so that

    p1 (H L)1 (2 ) 1 (1 )(A L)

    or

    p1

    1

    [(1 )H L A],

    which is negative by assumption 5. Q.E.D.

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