The Role of Dynamic Renegotiation and Asymmetric Information in Financial Contracting

NBER Working Paper No. 20484

Issued in September 2014

NBER Program(s):Corporate Finance



Using data from SEC filings, I show that the typical bank loan is renegotiated five times, or every nine months. The pricing, maturity, amount, and covenants are all significantly modified during each renegotiation, whose timing is governed by the financial health of the contracting parties and uncertainty regarding the borrowers' credit quality. The relative importance of these factors depends on the duration of the lending relationship. I interpret these results in light of financial contracting theories and emphasize that renegotiation is an important mechanism for dynamically completing contracts and for allocating control rights ex post.

Acknowledgments

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w20484

Published: Michael R. Roberts, 2015. "The role of dynamic renegotiation and asymmetric information in financial contracting," Journal of Financial Economics, vol 116(1), pages 61-81.

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