IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eui/euiwps/eco2009-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Illiquidity and Under-Valuation of Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Douglas Gale
  • Piero Gottardi

Abstract

We study a competitive model in which market incompleteness implies that debt-financed firms may default in some states of nature and default may lead to the sale of the firms’ assets at fire sale prices when markets are illiquid. This incompleteness is the only friction in the model and the only cost of default. The anticipation of such losses alone may distort .rms.investment decisions. We characterize the conditions under which fire sales occur in equilibrium and their consequences on firms' investment decisions. We also show that endogenous financial crises may arise in this environment, with asset prices collapsing as a result of pure self-fulfilling beliefs. Finally, we examine alternative interventions to restore the efficiency of equilibria.

Suggested Citation

  • Douglas Gale & Piero Gottardi, 2009. "Illiquidity and Under-Valuation of Firms," Economics Working Papers ECO2009/38, European University Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:eui:euiwps:eco2009/38
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://cadmus.eui.eu/dspace/bitstream/1814/12695/1/ECO_2009_38.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver D, 1979. "A Theory of Competitive Equilibrium in Stock Market Economies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(2), pages 293-329, March.
    2. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1992. "Liquidation Values and Debt Capacity: A Market Equilibrium Approach," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1343-1366, September.
    3. Bengt Holmström & Jean Tirole, 2001. "LAPM: A Liquidity‐Based Asset Pricing Model," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(5), pages 1837-1867, October.
    4. Bengt Holmstrom & Jean Tirole, 1997. "Financial Intermediation, Loanable Funds, and The Real Sector," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(3), pages 663-691.
    5. Douglas W. Diamond & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2005. "Liquidity Shortages and Banking Crises," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(2), pages 615-647, April.
    6. Hart, Oliver D, 1979. "On Shareholder Unanimity in Large Stock Market Economies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(5), pages 1057-1083, September.
    7. Douglas W. Diamond & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2000. "A Theory of Bank Capital," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(6), pages 2431-2465, December.
    8. Timothy J. Kehoe & David K. Levine, 1993. "Debt-Constrained Asset Markets," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(4), pages 865-888.
    9. Douglas W. Diamond & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2001. "Liquidity Risk, Liquidity Creation, and Financial Fragility: A Theory of Banking," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(2), pages 287-327, April.
    10. Pradeep Dubey & John Geanakoplos & Martin Shubik, 2005. "Default and Punishment in General Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(1), pages 1-37, January.
    11. Franklin Allen & Douglas Gale, 2004. "Financial Intermediaries and Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(4), pages 1023-1061, July.
    12. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:4:p:1245-1284 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. S. Viswanathan & Adriano A. Rampini, 2008. "Collateral, Financial Intermediation, and the Distribution of Debt Capacity," 2008 Meeting Papers 116, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    2. Diamond, Douglas W. & Rajan, Raghuram G., 2001. "Banks, short-term debt and financial crises: theory, policy implications and applications," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 37-71, June.
    3. Beccalli, Elena & Frantz, Pascal, 2016. "Why are some banks recapitalized and others taken over?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 67305, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Beccalli, Elena & Frantz, Pascal, 2016. "Why are some banks recapitalized and others taken over?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 79-95.
    5. Patel, Ajay & Sorokina, Nonna & Thornton, John H., 2022. "Liquidity and bank capital structure," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    6. Markus K. Brunnermeier, 2008. "Deciphering the Liquidity and Credit Crunch 2007-08," NBER Working Papers 14612, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Mirza, Afrasiab & Stephens, Eric, 2022. "Securitization and aggregate investment efficiency," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    8. Hong Chen & Murray Frank, 2016. "Are Direct Investments by the Federal Reserve a Good Idea? A Corporate Finance Perspective," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(03), pages 1-48, September.
    9. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Thomas M. Eisenbach & Yuliy Sannikov, 2012. "Macroeconomics with Financial Frictions: A Survey," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000384, David K. Levine.
    10. Topi, Jukka, 2008. "Bank runs, liquidity and credit risk," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 12/2008, Bank of Finland.
    11. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2022. "Financial Intermediation and the Economy," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2022-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    12. Nikolaou, Kleopatra, 2009. "Liquidity (risk) concepts: definitions and interactions," Working Paper Series 1008, European Central Bank.
    13. Ignazio Angeloni, 2009. "A Tale of Two Policies- Prudential Regulation and Monetary Policy with Fragile Banks," Working Papers 345, Bruegel.
    14. Brunnermeier, Markus K. & Oehmke, Martin, 2013. "Bubbles, Financial Crises, and Systemic Risk," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1221-1288, Elsevier.
    15. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2008_012 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Topi, Jukka, 2008. "Bank runs, liquidity and credit risk," Research Discussion Papers 12/2008, Bank of Finland.
    17. Piccotti, Louis R., 2017. "Financial contagion risk and the stochastic discount factor," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 230-248.
    18. Fungáčová, Zuzana & Turk-Ariss, Rima & Weill, Laurent, 2013. "Does excessive liquidity creation trigger bank failures?," BOFIT Discussion Papers 2/2013, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    19. Douglas W. Diamond & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2009. "Fear of Fire Sales and the Credit Freeze," NBER Working Papers 14925, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Silva, Walmir & Kimura, Herbert & Sobreiro, Vinicius Amorim, 2017. "An analysis of the literature on systemic financial risk: A survey," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 91-114.
    21. Fungáčová, Zuzana & Turk-Ariss, Rima & Weill, Laurent, 2013. "Does excessive liquidity creation trigger bank failures?," BOFIT Discussion Papers 2/2013, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    illiquid markets; default; incomplete markets; price distortions; inefficient investment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D5 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
    • G33 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Bankruptcy; Liquidation

    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:eui:euiwps:eco2009/38. 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: Cécile Brière (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deiueit.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.