The Loan Commitment as an Optimal Financing Contract
解释为何银行和借款人都风险中性时,贷款承诺仍存在:借款人两阶段投资项目在第二阶段所需投资未知,银行无法得知,可能导致借款人因不视第一阶段投资为沉没成本而违约,贷款承诺式合同可解决此投资不足问题。
This paper provides an imperfect information explanation for the existence of bank loan commitments when both the bank and the potential borrower are risk neutral. The borrower is assumed to have access to a two-stage investment project wherein the investment required in the second stage is not known at the outset. The unknown investment requirement is revealed to the borrower, but not to the bank, at the beginning of the second stage. If the investor borrows at the beginning of the first stage, the realization at the beginning of the second stage might prompt a default in a situation where the project yields positive net present value. The reason is that the borrower does not regard the first-stage investment as a sunk cost. We show that a two-stage contract resembling a loan commitment can solve this under-investment problem.