|
on Corporate Finance |
| By: | Nykvist, Jenny (Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Do potential entrepreneurs face liquidity constraints? Or to put it differently, does a person have to be wealthy to start a new business? This question has been discussed in a large literature that has documented a positive relationship between initial wealth and entrepreneurship. However, in a recent paper Hurst and Lusardi (2004) use higher order of polynomials in wealth and find that there is no relationship between household initial wealth and the probability of starting an own business throughout most of the wealth distribution in the United States. In this paper we examine this relationship using similar methods on Swedish data. The data set used is LINDA, a register-based longitudinal data set for Sweden. The relationship is estimated using probit models with different specifications of wealth. However, the result that wealth is not important for new entrepreneurs cannot be replicated. Instead, the main finding of the paper is that the relationship between wealth and transition into entrepreneurship is positive but diminishing for the major part of the wealth distribution. Moreover, the relationship between wealth and entrepreneurship gets stronger as the models get less restricted with respect to wealth. Our result leads us to the conclusion that liquidity constraints do play a significant role when determining transition into entrepreneurship in Sweden. |
| Keywords: | Liquidity constraints; wealth; entrepreneurship; starting capital; business ownership |
| JEL: | D31 J23 J24 M13 |
| Date: | 2005–09–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2005_021&r=cfn |
| By: | Raghuram G. Rajan |
| Abstract: | Developments in the financial sector have led to an expansion in its ability to spread risks. The increase in the risk bearing capacity of economies, as well as in actual risk taking, has led to a range of financial transactions that hitherto were not possible, and has created much greater access to finance for firms and households. On net, this has made the world much better off. Concurrently, however, we have also seen the emergence of a whole range of intermediaries, whose size and appetite for risk may expand over the cycle. Not only can these intermediaries accentuate real fluctuations, they can also leave themselves exposed to certain small probability risks that their own collective behavior makes more likely. As a result, under some conditions, economies may be more exposed to financial-sector-induced turmoil than in the past. The paper discusses the implications for monetary policy and prudential supervision. In particular, it suggests market-friendly policies that would reduce the incentive of intermediary managers to take excessive risk. |
| JEL: | G0 G1 G2 G3 |
| Date: | 2005–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11728&r=cfn |
| By: | Sarbajit Chaudhuri |
| Abstract: | The paper provides a theory of interest rates determination in the informal credit market in backward agriculture highlighting the interactions between two informal sector lenders (a professional moneylender and a trader-interlocker) and explains the prevalence of different interest rates in the rural credit market. The trader and the moneylender play a non-cooperative game in choosing the extent of interlinkage and the non-interlinked informal interest rate, respectively. In the interlinked credit-product contract, the trader offers the interlockees a product price equal to the open market price and his entire surplus comes from his activities in the credit market. These results are completely opposite to those found in the existing literature on interlinkage. A price subsidy policy reduces the extent of interlinkage chosen by the trader while a credit subsidy policy may raise it. Besides, the subsidy policies unequivocally raise the non- interlinked informal interest rate of the moneylender but may lower the welfare of the farmers and the agricultural productivity. In this context, an alternative credit policy of forging a vertical linkage between the formal and informal credit markets has been considered. It has been found that a credit subsidy policy under the new system is able to raise the agricultural productivity and improve the welfare of the farmers by ameliorating their borrowing terms in the credit market. |
| Keywords: | Trader, Moneylender, Formal credit, Informal credit, Interlinkage, Interest rate, Nash equilibrium, Subsidy policy, Vertical linkage |
| JEL: | Q14 D89 |
| Date: | 2005–11–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpga:0511002&r=cfn |
| By: | William R. Latham (Department of Economics,University of Delaware); Helen Bowers |
| Abstract: | In the market for corporate control, a potential market failure of asymmetric or inadequate information arises if any of the market participants (the acquiring or target firms’ management, boards of directors or shareholders) have insufficient knowledge about the real market value of a target firm. This failure may be mitigated by the market’s participants choosing to purchase additional information about the value of the target firm. An opinion by a third party regarding this value is known as a “fairness opinion.” Although it is often the case that at least one party to an acquisition obtains a fairness opinion, the issue of whether they provide any informational value is still debated. US court rulings have increased the potential costs to firms and their boards of directors of making merger and acquisition decisions without sufficient information, thus potentially raising the value of fairness opinions. The paper examines factors influencing the decisions of firms engaged in merger and acquisition activity during the 1980-2002 period to obtain or not to obtain fairness opinions. For each transaction information is available on the primary industry in which the acquiring and target firms operate and on the numbers and types of additional information, including fairness opinions, each of the parties to the transaction sought during the progress of the transaction. Our results show that for the acquiring firm in an acquisition, the likelihood of purchasing fairness opinions is influenced significantly by (1) the market values of the acquirer and the target firm, (2) the volatility of excess returns of both firms, (3) whether or not the transaction is a “cash” deal, (3) the degree of asymmetric information as measured by the similarity of the acquirer and target firms, (4) the amount of monopoly power the target firm has, (5) whether the acquisition is “hostile,” and (6) whether other financial advisory services have been purchased by either firm. Finally, strong evidence is found indicating that (7) the behavior of acquiring firms, whether incorporated in Delaware or not, has been significantly altered since the 1985 Van Gorkom v. Smith decision by a Delaware court regarding fairness opinions. Our results for target firms are not as strong as those for acquirers, nor are the results for financial advisory services more broadly defined. |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dlw:wpaper:05-17&r=cfn |
| By: | Kenneth Lewis (Department of Economics,University of Delaware); Laurence Seidman |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a quantitative assessment of the use of fiscal stimulus to achieve full recovery from a severe recession when the potency of monetary policy weakens after hitting its zero interest-rate bound. By contrast, most of the numerous recent zero interest-rate bound papers have ignored the use of fiscal stimulus, preferring to examine whether monetary policy alone can revive the economy despite the zero bound. We obtain our estimates by adapting and simulating a macro-econometric model that has been recently econometrically estimated, updated, and statistically tested using U.S. times series data. By contrast, most of the recent zero bound papers do not use an econometrically-estimated model. If the U.S. economy were hit with a large negative demand shock that drives the unemployment rate up to 7.9%, we estimate that even aggressive monetary policy that drives long-term interest rates to near zero would reduce the unemployment rate only to 6.7%. Full recovery would be achieved, however, if the aggressive monetary policy were complemented by sufficient fiscal stimulus in the form of cash transfers or income tax cuts to households. We estimate that a quarterly transfer to households that peaks at 2.7% of quarterly GDP and phases out gradually as it is repeated over seven quarters (so that the cumulative transfer is roughly 12% of quarterly GDP) would reduce the unemployment rate in such a recession by nearly an additional percentage pointC from 6.7% to 5.9%. |
| JEL: | E62 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dlw:wpaper:05-19&r=cfn |
| By: | Elizaveta Krylova (European Central Bank, Market Operations, Kaiserstrasse 29, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany); Jussi Nikkinen (University of Vaasa, Department of Accounting and Finance, P.O. Box 700, 65101 Vaasa, Finland); Sami Vähämaa (University of Vaasa, Department of Accounting and Finance, P.O. Box 700, 65101 Vaasa, Finland) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the cross-dynamics of volatility term structures implied by foreign exchange options. The data used in the empirical analysis consist of daily observations of implied volatilities for OTC options on the euro, Japanese yen, British pound, Swiss franc, and Canadian dollar, quoted against the U.S. dollar. The empirical findings demonstrate that two common factors can explain a vast proportion of the variation in volatility term structures across currencies. Furthermore, the results indicate that the euro is the dominant currency, as the implied volatility term structure of the euro is found to affect all the other volatility term structures, while the term structure of the euro appears to be virtually unaffected by the other currencies. Finally, our results reveal a rather deviant relation between the volatility term structures of the euro and Swiss franc by providing evidence of significant nonlinearities in the relationship between these two currencies. |
| Keywords: | Implied volatility; volatility term structure; foreign exchange options. |
| JEL: | F31 G13 G15 |
| Date: | 2005–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20050530&r=cfn |