IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/17599.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Should Derivatives be Privileged in Bankruptcy?

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick Bolton
  • Martin Oehmke

Abstract

Derivative contracts, swaps, and repos enjoy "super-senior" status in bankruptcy: they are exempt from the automatic stay on debt and collateral collection that applies to virtually all other claims. We propose a simple corporate finance model to assess the effect of this exemption on firms' cost of borrowing and incentives to engage in swaps and derivatives transactions. Our model shows that while derivatives are value-enhancing risk management tools, super-seniority for derivatives can lead to inefficiencies: collateralization and effective seniority of derivatives shifts credit risk to the firm's creditors, even though this risk could be borne more efficiently by derivative counterparties. In addition, because super-senior derivatives dilute existing creditors, they may lead firms to take on derivative positions that are too large from a social perspective. Hence, derivatives markets may grow inefficiently large in equilibrium.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick Bolton & Martin Oehmke, 2011. "Should Derivatives be Privileged in Bankruptcy?," NBER Working Papers 17599, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17599
    Note: CF
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17599.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hirshleifer, David, 1990. "Hedging Pressure and Futures Price Movements in a General Equilibrium Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(2), pages 411-428, March.
    2. Desai, Mihir A. & Dyck, Alexander & Zingales, Luigi, 2007. "Theft and taxes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 591-623, June.
    3. Froot, Kenneth A & Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1993. "Risk Management: Coordinating Corporate Investment and Financing Policies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1629-1658, December.
    4. Oliver Hart & John Moore, 1994. "A Theory of Debt Based on the Inalienability of Human Capital," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 841-879.
    5. 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.
    6. Brennan, Michael J & Schwartz, Edwardo S, 1978. "Corporate Income Taxes, Valuation, and the Problem of Optimal Capital Structure," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(1), pages 103-114, January.
    7. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    8. James R. Thompson, 2010. "Counterparty Risk in Financial Contracts: Should the Insured Worry About the Insurer?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1195-1252.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sebastian Infante, 2013. "Repo collateral fire sales: the effects of exemption from automatic stay," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2013-83, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Gaetano Antinolfi & Francesca Carapella & Charles Kahn & Antoine Martin & David Mills & Ed Nosal, 2015. "Repos, Fire Sales, and Bankruptcy Policy," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(1), pages 21-31, January.
    3. Maryam Farboodi, 2014. "Intermediation and Voluntary Exposure to Counterparty Risk," 2014 Meeting Papers 365, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Oehmke, Martin, 2014. "Liquidating illiquid collateral," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 84518, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. , & Yorulmazer, Tanju, 2013. "Liquidity hoarding," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(2), May.

    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. Bruno Biais & Florian Heider & Marie Hoerova, 2016. "Risk-Sharing or Risk-Taking? Counterparty Risk, Incentives, and Margins," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(4), pages 1669-1698, August.
    2. 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.
    3. Zaheer Anwer & Shamsher Mohamad & Wajahat Azmi & Akram Shavkatovich Hasanov, 2022. "Product market fluidity and religious constraints: evidence from the US market," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(S1), pages 1761-1817, April.
    4. Smith, Stephen D. & Wall, Larry D., 2010. "Debt, hedging and human capital," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 55-63, June.
    5. Monda, Barbara & Giorgino, Marco & Modolin, Ileana, 2013. "Rationales for Corporate Risk Management - A Critical Literature Review," MPRA Paper 45420, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Fluck, Zsuzsanna, 1999. "The Dynamics of the Management-Shareholder Conflict," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(2), pages 379-404.
    7. Atsushi Chino & Joon Ho Kim, 2022. "Does dividend policy affect sales growth in product markets? Evidence from the 2003 dividend tax cut," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 51(2), pages 539-571, June.
    8. Patrick Bolton & Hui Chen & Neng Wang, 2011. "A Unified Theory of Tobin's q, Corporate Investment, Financing, and Risk Management," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1545-1578, October.
    9. Luigi Zingales, 2000. "In Search of New Foundations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1623-1653, August.
    10. Einar C. Kjenstad & Anil Kumar, 2022. "The effect of real estate prices on peer firms," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1022-1053, December.
    11. Steven N. Kaplan & Per Strömberg, 2003. "Financial Contracting Theory Meets the Real World: An Empirical Analysis of Venture Capital Contracts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 281-315.
    12. Hayne E. Leland., 1998. "Agency Costs, Risk Management, and Capital Structure," Research Program in Finance Working Papers RPF-278, University of California at Berkeley.
    13. Valta, Philip, 2012. "Competition and the cost of debt," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 661-682.
    14. Ahrends, Meike & Drobetz, Wolfgang & Puhan, Tatjana Xenia, 2018. "Cyclicality of growth opportunities and the value of cash holdings," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 74-96.
    15. Patrick Bolton & Neng Wang & Jinqiang Yang, 2019. "Optimal Contracting, Corporate Finance, and Valuation with Inalienable Human Capital," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(3), pages 1363-1429, June.
    16. Roberta DessÌ & Donald Robertson, 2003. "Debt, Incentives and Performance: Evidence from UK Panel Data," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(490), pages 903-919, October.
    17. 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.
    18. Langberg, Nisan, 2008. "Optimal financing for growth firms," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 379-406, July.
    19. Zhiguo He & Gregor Matvos, 2016. "Debt and Creative Destruction: Why Could Subsidizing Corporate Debt Be Optimal?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(2), pages 303-325, February.
    20. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "A Survey of Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 737-783, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • 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:nbr:nberwo:17599. 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: the person in charge (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.