Optimal Financial Contracts

Kevin Dowd ()

Oxford Economic Papers, 1992, vol. 44, issue 4, 672-93

Abstract: This paper investigates the structure of optimal financial contracts and the main factors that influence it--verification and monitoring costs, moral hazard, agents' wealth limitations, and their attitudes to risk. It suggests that the optimality of debt contracts with costly bankruptcy is more robust than some have recently suggested and discusses how recent literature is able to explain features of debt contracts such as coupon payments, covenant restrictions, the distinction between default and liquidation, maturity structure, collateral, and credit rationing. It also examines the optimality of equity and discusses circumstances where the optimal contract is neither debt nor equity. Copyright 1992 by Royal Economic Society.

Date: 1992
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