Debt Composition and Lax Screening in the Corporate Bond Market

35 Pages Posted: 2 Mar 2017 Last revised: 20 Nov 2017

See all articles by Uri Benzion

Uri Benzion

Western Galilee College - Department of Economics

Koresh Galil

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev - Department of Economics

Eyal Lahav

The Open University of Israel

Offer Shapir

New York University (NYU) - New York University (NYU), Shanghai

Date Written: October 1, 2017

Abstract

Corporate bond markets may suffer from investors’ lack of competence in screening out low-quality issuers. We use data from the Israeli capital market in 1999-2009 to investigate the quality of corporate bond issuers and the role of the institutional investors in the screening process in the corporate bond market. The findings suggest that higher quality firms were more likely to issue bonds, but firms of lower quality tended to raise a higher fraction of their debt through bond issuance. Firms with higher proportion of their debt in bonds out had also a higher tendency to default. Institutional investors intensively funded firms with higher share of bonds in their long-term debt despite their lower quality, and therefore were partially responsible for the lax screening in the corporate bond market.

Keywords: Corporate Bonds, Debt Composition, Credit Rating, Emerging Market, Institutional Investors

JEL Classification: G23, G24, G32

Suggested Citation

Benzion, Uri and Galil, Koresh and Lahav, Eyal and Shapir, Offer, Debt Composition and Lax Screening in the Corporate Bond Market (October 1, 2017). International Review of Economics & Finance, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2922965 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2922965

Uri Benzion

Western Galilee College - Department of Economics ( email )

POB 2125
Akko, 24121
Israel

Koresh Galil

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev - Department of Economics ( email )

Beer-Sheva 84105
Israel
+972-8-6472310 (Phone)

Eyal Lahav

The Open University of Israel ( email )

1 University Road
43107
Raanana
Israel

Offer Shapir (Contact Author)

New York University (NYU) - New York University (NYU), Shanghai ( email )

1555 Century Ave
Shanghai, Shanghai 200122
China

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