德勤－复旦会计论坛系列讲座之一百三十

时间：2017年10月10日（周二）下午13：30

地点：史带楼503室

主持人: 朱振梅博士

Speaker：Edward Lee (The University of Manchester)

Title：Does contracting efficiency strengthen or weaken information efficiency? The spill-over effect of debt covenant tightness on equity mispricing

Abstract：We examine the spill-over effect of debt covenant tightness on equity mispricing. Although debt covenants protect lenders, the existing literature provides two competing perspectives of their consequences on corporate borrowers’ information environment. Whereas some studies suggest that monitoring promotes timelier disclosure and information dissemination, others reveal that covenant violation avoidance induces earnings management. Consistent with a trade-off between debt contracting efficiency and equity market information efficiency, we provide evidence that syndicated loan contracts arranged with a higher probability of covenant violation lead to an increase of post-earnings announcement drift in borrowers’ share prices. Further analyses reveal that this effect is more pronounced (i) for performance-based rather than capital-based covenants, (ii) if borrowers have fewer bargaining powers, and (iii) when there is an increase in earnings management after the loan issuance. Our study implies that tight covenants can generate negative unintended consequence that trades off the contracting and valuation roles of financial statement information between the debt and equity markets.

会计学系

2017-9-30