{"title":"Tacit collusion among dominant banks: Evidence from round-yard loan pricing","authors":"Yu-Ju Chan , Chih-Yung Lin , Tse-Chun Lin","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102750","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102750","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>While there is no apparent reason for loan spreads to cluster at certain numbers, we find that approximately 70 % of bank loans have round-yard spreads (i.e., multiples of 25 basis points). We hypothesize that dominant banks implicitly collude using round yards as focal pricing points when negotiating with borrowers. Tacit collusion leads to higher spreads and total costs of round yard priced loans than of non-round yard priced loans. Consistent with our tacit collusion hypothesis, dominant banks round up loans to multiple yards rather than rounding them down. Moreover, round-yard pricing is more prevalent among lower-quality and nonrepeat borrowers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"92 ","pages":"Article 102750"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143429045","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Derrick W.H. Fung , Wing Yan Lee , Charles C. Yang
{"title":"Surviving the storm: Evaluating the role of enterprise risk management in property and liability insurers' performance during the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Derrick W.H. Fung , Wing Yan Lee , Charles C. Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102751","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102751","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines whether the implementation of a mature enterprise risk management (ERM) framework by property and liability insurers improved their resilience in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. To address the potential problem of endogeneity, we analyze a panel dataset of listed property and liability insurers from around the world using the propensity score matching method. Subsequently, a two-step “doubly robust” estimation method is employed. The results reveal that the performance of insurers with less mature ERM frameworks was adversely affected by the pandemic but that of insurers with more mature ERM frameworks was not. These findings remain consistent after conducting various robustness checks. Separate consideration of each ERM component reveals that no component independently enhanced insurers' resilience; rather, the components collectively enhanced their resilience. Overall, this study provides valuable insights for insurers and regulators aiming to enhance the industry's ability to withstand future challenges.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"91 ","pages":"Article 102751"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143419492","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Carbon home bias of European investors","authors":"Martijn Adriaan Boermans , Rients Galema","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102748","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102748","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates a phenomenon we call “carbon home bias”: the tendency of investors to disproportionately allocate investments towards domestic carbon-intensive assets. Using a confidential security-by-security euro area holdings database, we show that European investors favor domestic over foreign carbon-intensive investments. We provide evidence for substantial carbon home bias, utilizing a newly developed measure of portfolio carbon home bias that measures domestic carbon bias in excess of home bias. Our study highlights home advantages as possible motivation for carbon home bias. Using the introduction of the French Energy Law Article 173 as a positive shock to decarbonization incentives, we find that French institutional investors maintain their domestic carbon-intensive holdings, while other European institutional investors reduce theirs. Higher domestic institutional ownership is associated with about 50% lower carbon emissions in the five years after the regulatory change and excess returns of about 3% per year. Our results further provide evidence for a foreign carbon premium, while the domestic carbon premium is insignificant. Consequently, the phenomenon of carbon home bias cannot be attributed to differences between home and foreign carbon risk premia.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"92 ","pages":"Article 102748"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143453012","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Md Nazmul Hasan Bhuyan , Luis García-Feijóo , Tijana Rajkovic
{"title":"Real options and CEO social connections: The role of financial flexibility","authors":"Md Nazmul Hasan Bhuyan , Luis García-Feijóo , Tijana Rajkovic","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102749","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102749","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine the impact of CEO social connections on the value of real options. Consistent with the benefits of information transmission, reputation, and trust embedded in social connections, we find that CEO social connections act as real option facilitator through improved financial flexibility, alleviating financial constraints. The effect of CEO social connections is stronger for firms with high growth opportunities and when the CEO has a longer-term career horizon and greater ability. CEO social connections have an increasingly stronger impact on the value of real options. Overall, social connections influence the value of real options, a novel finding in the literature.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"91 ","pages":"Article 102749"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143419592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Karan Bhanot , Pascal François , Palani-Rajan Kadapakkam
{"title":"How does the structure of an interest expense cap change the tax benefits of debt?","authors":"Karan Bhanot , Pascal François , Palani-Rajan Kadapakkam","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102747","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102747","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using an earnings-based structural model, calibrated with US data for the period 2001–2017, we examine how the structure of an interest expense cap for the deduction of interest expense changes the tax benefits of debt. We find that an EBIT (EBITDA) based cap reduces the marginal tax benefits of debt by 6 percentage points (4.6 p.p.) of unlevered firm value for a typical firm. This impact differs across industries due to variations in industry-specific labor and physical capital deployed, and the associated depreciation. An EBITDA-based structure for a cap reduces the differential tax impact of a cap across industries. Our results are widely applicable in determining the cost of debt in the presence of these cap structures, enshrined in the US and OECD countries.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"91 ","pages":"Article 102747"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143418856","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Risk, return, and environmental and social ratings","authors":"Sudheer Chava , Jeong Ho (John) Kim , Jaemin Lee","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102744","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102744","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We analyze the risk and return characteristics across firms sorted by their environmental and social (ES) ratings. We document that ES ratings have no significant relation with average stock returns or unconditional market risk, and we provide evidence that these non-results are not due to low statistical power. Stocks of firms with higher ES ratings <em>do</em> have significantly lower systematic downside risk, as measured by downside beta, relative downside beta, coskewness, and tail risk beta. Nevertheless, the economic magnitude of such reduction in downside risk is small. Our results suggest that stock investors who derive non-pecuniary benefits from ES investing can engage in it without sacrificing financial performance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"92 ","pages":"Article 102744"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143488227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The stock market reaction to bond refinancing issues with and without senior debt","authors":"Axel Grossmann , Thanh Ngo","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102746","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102746","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using a sample of 3228 bond issues of U.S. publicly traded companies from 1990 to 2021, we find a statistically significant negative stock market reaction surrounding the announcements of debt issues aimed at refinancing outstanding debt when compared to debt issues for other purposes. The results are not driven by public debt being used to refinance “inside” debt, such as bank loans. This finding aligns with signaling theory, which suggests that replacing existing debt with new debt may indicate unfavorable conditions: difficulty servicing current debt obligations with existing resources or a lack of future growth opportunities. These negative market reactions are mitigated, however, when firms use less risky senior debt to refinance existing debt. Senior notes serve as a strategic move by firms to counter the negative market perception associated with debt refinancing issues. The findings are particularly more pronounced for the decades after 1999, albeit with a reduced magnitude in the 2010s, suggesting that the Global Financial Crisis in the 2000s made markets more sensitive to negative signals related to public debt refinancing. The main findings are robust to potential biases brought about by measurement errors, simultaneity, and endogeneity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"91 ","pages":"Article 102746"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143148512","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Qingjie Du , Iftekhar Hasan , Yang Wang , K.C. John Wei
{"title":"Political corruption, Dodd–Frank whistleblowing, and debt financing","authors":"Qingjie Du , Iftekhar Hasan , Yang Wang , K.C. John Wei","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102745","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102745","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigate how a state's political corruption affects a resident firm's debt contracting and how a change in anti-corruption regulation alters the relation between corruption and loan contracting. Firms in more corrupt states are associated with significantly higher loan spreads and tighter loan covenants than firms in less corrupt states. Furthermore, the passage of the Dodd–Frank whistleblowing provision amplifies the conhcerns of banks about the detrimental impact of corruption due to the increased exposure of firms to whistleblowing threats. The detrimental impact of corruption is further amplified when a state has a higher level of whistleblowing involvement, when firms are located in more corrupt states or closer to the SEC office, and when the bank's state is less corrupt than the firm's state. In general, we document the externality of corruption in the debt financing of firms and the response of banks to changes in regulation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"91 ","pages":"Article 102745"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143148626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dark trading volume and market quality: A natural experiment","authors":"Ryan Farley, Eric K. Kelley, Andy Puckett","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102742","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102742","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We exploit an exogenous shock to dark trading volume to identify the effect of dark trading on market quality. Following a 34% reduction in trading on dark venues, we find no evidence that the cost of trade (e.g., effective spreads, realized spreads, price impact, and quoted spreads) changes in a statistically or economically meaningful manner. While our findings stand in contrast to those of several prior studies, supplemental tests confirm that contradictory inferences cannot be attributed to either low power or different stock samples or time periods. Instead, we argue that identification is a key driver in conflicting results. Our research highlights the benefit of structured experimentation from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for understanding causal effects in capital markets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"91 ","pages":"Article 102742"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143388221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Risk-taking incentives and firm credit risk1","authors":"Kevin Koharki , Luke Watson","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102738","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102738","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Theoretically, increased risk-taking incentives should disproportionately benefit equity holders at the expense of creditors. However, we find that increases in CEO risk-taking incentives (vega) are associated with better outcomes for creditors. Specifically, credit ratings and credit default swaps both improve following increases in vega. This effect is magnified for firms close to default. Within the Merton (1974) framework, our findings suggest that increased risk-taking incentives induce managers to take on more positive net present value projects. Consequently, while higher vega increases the risk of the firm, our results imply that it also increases the expected value of the firm, reducing its credit risk.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"91 ","pages":"Article 102738"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143148625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}