Coinsurance effect and bank lines of credit

Zhenxu Tong

Journal of Banking & Finance, 2012, vol. 36, issue 6, 1592-1603

Abstract: The coinsurance effect hypothesis predicts that firm diversification reduces financial constraints through imperfectly correlated cash flows among segments. We empirically test the hypothesis by studying the relation between coinsurance effect and bank lines of credit. We find that coinsurance effect is associated with a higher availability of bank lines of credit, and that diversified firms hold a higher level of bank lines of credit if they have higher investment opportunities and if they are bank-dependent. We find that diversified firms hold a higher fraction of corporate liquidity in the form of bank lines of credit due to the coinsurance effect. The findings are consistent with the coinsurance effect hypothesis and contribute to the debate on the value consequence of firm diversification by disclosing a specific channel through which firm diversification affects financial constraints.

Keywords: Coinsurance effect; Bank lines of credit; Firm diversification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G30 G31 G32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426612000209
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:36:y:2012:i:6:p:1592-1603

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2012.01.006

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Banking & Finance is currently edited by Ike Mathur

More articles in Journal of Banking & Finance from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().