The Maturity Premium

Josef Zechner, Maria Chaderina and Patrick Weiss

No 14570, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: This paper shows that firms with longer debt maturities earn risk premia not explained by unconditional standard factor models. We develop a dynamic capital structure model and find that firms with long-term debt exhibit more countercyclical leverage, making them more highly levered in downturns, when the market price of risk is high. The induced covariance between risk exposure and the market price of risk generates a maturity premium which we estimate at 0.21% per month. Empirical results from a conditional CAPM as well as observed beta dynamics are consistent with the model. We also exploit exogenous variation of debt maturities at the onset of the financial crisis and find that firms with shorter debt maturities experienced a smaller increase in leverage during the crisis. Also, after an initial spike, the betas of short-maturity firms reverted to levels below those of long-maturity firms by the end of 2008.

Keywords: Maturity; Value premium; Debt overhang; Cross-section of stock returns; Capm (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G12 G32 G33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cfn and nep-fmk
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: The maturity premium (2022)
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