Search Results
Working Paper
High-Yield Debt Covenants and Their Real Effects
High-yield debt, including leveraged loans, is characterized by incurrence financial covenants, or “cov-lite” provisions. Unlike, traditional, maintenance covenants, incurrence covenants preserve equity control rights but trigger pre-specified restrictions on the borrower’s actions once the covenant threshold is crossed. We show that restricted actions impose significant constraints on investments: Similar to the effects of the shift of control rights to creditors in traditional loans, the drop in investment under incurrence covenants is large and sudden. This evidence suggests a new ...
Discussion Paper
Implications of the COVID-19 Disruption for Corporate Leverage
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant economic disruptions among U.S. corporations. In this post, we study the preliminary impact of these disruptions on the cash flow and leverage of public U.S. corporations using public filings through April 2020. We find that the pandemic had a negative impact on cash flow while also reducing corporations’ interest expenses. However, the cash flow shock far outpaced the benefits of lower interest payments, especially in industries that were disproportionately levered. Looking ahead, we find that a sizable share of U.S. corporations have interest ...
Working Paper
Corporate Debt Maturity Matters for Monetary Policy
We provide novel empirical evidence that firms’ investment is more responsive to monetary policy when a higher fraction of their debt matures. In a heterogeneous firm New Keynesian model with financial frictions and endogenous debt maturity, two channels explain this finding: (1.) Firms with more maturing debt have larger roll-over needs and are therefore more exposed to fluctuations in the real interest rate (roll-over risk). (2.) These firms also have higher default risk and therefore react more strongly to changes in the real burden of outstanding nominal debt (debt overhang). ...
Working Paper
Debt Flexibility
This paper documents new facts on the modification of bank loans using FR Y-14Q regulatory data on C&I loans. We find that loan-level modifications of key contractual terms, such as interest and maturity, occur at least once for 41% of loans. Cross sectional differences in modifications are substantial and amplified by borrower distress. Relative to single-lender loans, syndicated loans are 1.5 times more likely to be modified and interest rate changes are twice as likely. Our findings call into question whether 1) creditor dispersion makes loan modifications more challenging and 2) ...
The Comovement between Credit Spreads, Corporate Debt and Liquid Assets in Recent Crises
Credit spreads rose sharply during the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 crisis. But their movement with corporate debt and liquid assets differed during those two periods.
Journal Article
Capital Reallocation and Capital Investment
Corporate debt levels have grown substantially during the 10-year recovery from the global financial crisis. This debt might be expected to finance investments that support firm expansion, as the U.S. economy has experienced strong growth over the last 10 years. However, much of the corporate debt has been used to reallocate capital through mergers and acquisitions rather than to fund investment activity. Perhaps as a result, some market watchers have expressed concerns that corporations are crowding out, rather than complementing, new investment. {{p}} David Rodziewicz and Nicholas Sly show ...
Working Paper
Corporate Debt Maturity Matters for Monetary Policy
We provide novel empirical evidence that firms’ investment is more responsive to monetary policy when a higher fraction of their debt matures. In a heterogeneous firm New Keynesian model with financial frictions and endogenous debt maturity, two channels explain this finding: (1.) Firms with more maturing debt have larger roll-over needs and are therefore more exposed to fluctuations in the real interest rate (roll-over risk). (2.) These firms also have higher default risk and therefore react more strongly to changes in the real burden of outstanding nominal debt (debt overhang). ...
Working Paper
Corporate stress and bank nonperforming loans: Evidence from Pakistan
Using detailed administrative Pakistani credit registry data, we show that banks with low leverage ratios are both significantly slower and less likely to recognize a loan as nonperforming than other banks that lend to the same firm. Moreover, we find suggestive evidence that this lack of recognition impedes loan curing, with banks with low leverage ratios reporting significantly higher final default rates than other banks for the same borrower (even after controlling for differences in loan terms). Our empirical findings are consistent with the theoretical prediction that classifying a ...
Report
Zombies at Large? Corporate Debt Overhang and the Macroeconomy
With business leverage at record levels, the effects of corporate debt overhang on growth and investment have become a prominent concern. In this paper, we study the effects of corporate debt overhang based on long-run cross-country data covering the near-universe of modern business cycles. We show that business credit booms typically do not leave a lasting imprint on the macroeconomy. Quantile local projections indicate that business credit booms do not affect the economy’s tail risks either. Yet in line with theory, we find that the economic costs of corporate debt booms rise when ...