Credit Information Quality and Corporate Debt Maturity : Theory and Evidence

Sorge, Marco ; Zhang, Chendi

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCOUNTING;    ACCOUNTING STANDARDS;    AGENCY PROBLEMS;    ARBITRAGE;    ASSET LIQUIDITY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4239
RP-ID  :  WPS4239

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper provides new theoretical andempirical evidence suggesting that the quality of creditinformation may be a key element in explaining the maturitystructure of corporate debt around the world. In marketswith poor credit information and hence a high degree ofuncertainty about borrower quality, the authors findsuboptimal equilibria in which short-term contracts arepreferred either as a hedge against uncertainty to limitlosses in bad states (in the symmetric information case) oras a screening device to learn about borrower credit qualityin the course of a repeated lending relationship (in theasymmetric information case). The results of the model aresupported by the econometric analysis of panel data fromboth industrial and developing economies. The authors findthat countries with better quality of credit information(for example, as a result of improvements in creditreporting systems or accounting standards) are characterizedby a higher share of long-term debt as a proportion of totalcorporate debt ceteris paribus. The findings suggest thatpromoting institutions and policies to improve the qualityof credit information is an important prerequisite forincreasing access of firms to long-term finance.