Debt Maturity and Commitment on Firm Policies
研究了当公司只能在离散日期发行债务时，债务期限如何约束投资和债务政策，发现短期债务能缓解市场冻结导致的投资不足和杠杆棘轮效应，优化债务期限可减少承诺问题和市场摩擦的成本。
Abstract When firms can issue debt at discrete dates only, debt maturity becomes an effective tool to constrain investment and debt policies. In the absence of other frictions, single-period debt restores first-best investment. With market freezes, long-maturity debt amplifies underinvestment and the leverage ratchet effect, while short maturity mitigates these distortions. Calibrating the model to U.S. nonfinancial firms shows that choosing the optimal debt maturity can reduce the cost of commitment problems and market frictions by up to 4% of firm value. A decomposition of the equilibrium credit spread reveals that the component associated with time-inconsistent debt and investment policies is largest when leverage and default risk are low, and is substantially reduced by shorter debt maturities.