We analyze the bank's decision to reschedule or to foreclose on a loan in default and the borrower's decision to divert lender-financed assets to personal use, i.e., to consume the assets. We show that the debt of borrowers in financial distress that have substantial intangible or highly...

The effects of measurement and specification error on estimates of the Q and cash flow model of investment are investigated. Two sources of error are considered: expensing of R&D expenditures and failing to identify that component of cash flow which relaxes financing constraints. We apply...

We examine the initial shareholdings taken by bidders prior to making tender offer bids ('toeholds') in order to test predictions of selected models of tender offers. Our data suggest a significantly negative relationship between first bidder premia and toeholds, which is consistent with the...

In this paper we examine 1,041 ongoing firms over the time period 1982-92. Using quarterly data for the detection and measurement of the magnitude of the indirect costs of financial distress, we find three important explanatory factors: (a) the distinctiveness of the pattern of increasing...

Financial models often use unexpected explanatory variables. Conventionally, these are generated as the residuals of auxiliary equations, which are then substituted into the model of interest in a second step. This induces an econometric problem into the estimates, which is typically ignored. We...

This paper examines the methodological issues of using accounting ratios to predict takeover targets. Certain improvements are suggested, notably the use of industry-relative ratios and the determination of an ex ante cut off point which maximizes returns. The empirical study suggests that...

This paper proposes a unified state-space formulation for parameter estimation of exponential-affine term structure models. The proposed method uses an approximate linear Kalman filter which only requires specifying the conditional mean and variance of the system in an approximate sense. The...

Cheung and Chung (1996) presented a set of four basic components that can be used to reconstruct piecewise linear payoff diagrams associated with single-payoff instruments. Arbitrage arguments indicate that this provides a method to value complex financial instruments as the sum of the values of...

This study, based on a sample of 1869 observations from 1989 to 1993 for non-regulated U.S. firms, examines the association between investment opportunity set (IOS), free cash flows (FCF) and debt, and also tests whether firm size acts as a moderating variable on this association. The results...

We estimate a monthly return volatility model that allows for the abrupt changes in volatility often observed in returns data. Using this model we are able to identify key months likely to correspond to draws from a high volatility regime. Using our model in conjunction with Merton's (1980)...