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Quarterly Journal of Economics

Quarterly (February, May, August, November)
250 pp. per issue, 6 x 9
Founded: 1886
ISSN 0033-5533
E-ISSN 1531-4650
2008 ISI Impact Factor: 5.048


Quarterly Journal of Economics

August 2005, Vol. 120, No. 3, Pages 1121-1154
Posted Online March 13, 2006.
(doi:10.1162/003355305774268200)
© 2005 President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Do Liquidation Values Affect Financial Contracts? Evidence from Commercial Loan Contracts and Zoning Regulation*

Efraim Benmelech

Harvard University

Mark J. Garmaise

University of California, Los Angeles

Tobias J. Moskowitz

University of Chicago and NBER

PDF (314.339 KB) PDF Plus (183.077 KB)

We examine the impact of asset liquidation value on debt contracting using a unique set of commercial property loan contracts. We employ commercial zoning regulation to capture the flexibility of a property's permitted uses as a measure of an asset's redeployability or value in its next best use. Within a census tract, more redeployable assets receive larger loans with longer maturities and durations, lower interest rates, and fewer creditors, controlling for the property's type, sale price, and earnings-to-price ratio. These results are consistent with incomplete contracting and transaction cost theories of liquidation value and financial structure.

Cited by

Efraim Benmelech, Nittai K. Bergman. (2008) Liquidation Values and the Credibility of Financial Contract Renegotiation: Evidence from U.S. Airlines. Quarterly Journal of Economics 123:4, 1635-1677
Online publication date: 1-Nov-2008.
Abstract | PDF (203 KB) | PDF Plus (208 KB) 
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