A Theory of Multi-Period Debt Structure

Martin Oehmke, Hongda Zhong and Chong Huang
Additional contact information
Martin Oehmke: London School of Economics
Hongda Zhong: LSE
Chong Huang: University of California, Irvine

No 1645, 2017 Meeting Papers from Society for Economic Dynamics

Abstract: We develop a model of multi-period debt structure. A simple trade-off between the termination threat required to make repayments incentive compatible and the desire to avoid early liquidation determines the number of repayments, their timing, and repayment amounts. For mature firms with risky cash flows, frequent repayments maximize pledgeable income—for example, by rolling over short-term debt. In contrast, for firms with cash-flow growth or significant risk-free cash flows, adding risky repayments can decrease pledgeable income. In some cases, a single risky bullet repayment maximizes pledgeable income, effectively a long-term debt contract.

Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2017/paper_1645.pdf (application/pdf)

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:red:sed017:1645

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2017 Meeting Papers from Society for Economic Dynamics Society for Economic Dynamics Marina Azzimonti Department of Economics Stonybrook University 10 Nicolls Road Stonybrook NY 11790 USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christian Zimmermann ().