Philip Valta

Competition and the Cost of Debt

This paper empirically shows that the cost of bank debt is systematically higher for firms that operate in competitive product markets. Using various proxies for product market competition, and reductions of import tariff rates to capture exogenous changes to a firms competitive environment, I find that competition has a significantly positive effect on the cost of bank debt. Moreover, the analysis reveals that the effect of competition is greater in industries in which small firms face financially strong rivals, in industries with intense strategic interactions between firms, and in illiquid industries. Overall, these findings suggest that banks price financial contracts by taking into account the risk that arises from product market competition.

How Does Corporate Investment Respond to Increased Entry Threat

We study how product-market interactions affect investment. We use reductions of import tariffs to examine how incumbents modify investment when the threat of rivals’ entry intensifies. Incumbents reduce investment by 7.2% in response to higher entry threat. Consistent with a strategic behavior, the investment reduction varies across market structures: it concentrates in markets in which competitive actions are strategic substitutes, where deterring entry is costly and investment makes incumbents look soft. Our results provide novel evidence on how and why firms’ interactions influence corporate investment.

Financing Investment: The Choice Between Bonds and Bank Loans

We build a model of investment and financing decisions to study the choice between bonds and bank loans in a firms marginal financing decision and its effects on corporate investment. We show that firms with more growth options, with higher bargaining power in default, operating in more competitive product markets, or facing lower credit supply are more likely to issue bonds. We also demonstrate that, by changing the cost of financing, these characteristics affect the timing of investment. We test these predictions using a sample of U.S. firms and present new evidence that supports our theory. Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.2005 . This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance.

Strategic Default, Debt Structure, and Stock Returns

This paper theoretically and empirically investigates how the debt structure and the strategic interaction between shareholders and debt holders in the event of default affect expected stock returns. The model predicts that expected stock returns are higher for firms that face high debt renegotiation difficulties and that have a large fraction of secured or convertible debt. Using a large sample of publicly traded US firms between 1985 and 2012, the paper presents new evidence on the link between debt structure and stock returns that is supportive of the models predictions.

Transitory Versus Permanent Shocks: Explaining Corporate Savings and Investment

Theory has recently shown that corporate policies should respond differently to permanent or transitory cash flow shocks. We devise a novel filter to decompose cash flow shocks into permanent and transitory components. The policy choices of large publicly traded U.S. firms, such as cash holdings, credit line usage, and equity issuance, are related to the characteristics of the shocks estimated by our filter, i.e., volatilities, correlation and drift rates of the permanent and transitory shocks, as predicted by theory. Moreover, the interaction between the permanent and transitory cash flow shocks is strongly related to a firm’s leadership status within its industry.