Information Aggregation, Security Design, and Currency Swaps

Yale ICF Working Paper No. 00-73

31 Pages Posted: 4 Feb 2002

See all articles by Mark Grinblatt

Mark Grinblatt

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Finance Area; Yale University - International Center for Finance; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Bhagwan Chowdhry

UCLA Anderson; Indian School of Business

David K. Levine

European University Institute - Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS); Washington University in St. Louis - Department of Economics

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: July 2001

Abstract

A security design model shows that multinational firms needing to finance their operations should issue different securities to investors in different countries in order to aggregate their disparate information about domestic and foreign cash flows. However, if the firm becomes bankrupt, investors may face uncertain costs of reorganizing assets in a foreign country and thus may value foreign assets at their average value. This penalizes superior firms with low reorganization costs. Such firms minimize the adverse selection penalty by designing securities that allocate all the cash flow in bankruptcy to investors for which the adverse selection costs are the smallest given the exchange rate. We show that this sharing rule can be implemented with currency swaps because these instruments allow the priorities of claims in bankruptcy to switch depending on the exchange rate.

JEL Classification: G2

Suggested Citation

Grinblatt, Mark and Chowdhry, Bhagwan and Levine, David K. and Levine, David K., Information Aggregation, Security Design, and Currency Swaps (July 2001). Yale ICF Working Paper No. 00-73, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6031 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6031

Mark Grinblatt

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Finance Area ( email )

Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
United States
310-825-1098 (Phone)
310-206-5455 (Fax)

Yale University - International Center for Finance

Box 208200
New Haven, CT 06520-8200
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
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Bhagwan Chowdhry (Contact Author)

UCLA Anderson ( email )

Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
United States
310-825-5883 (Phone)
310-206-5455 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://bit.ly/bhagwanUCLA

Indian School of Business ( email )

Hyderabad, Gachibowli 500 032
India

HOME PAGE: http://bit.ly/bhagwanUCLA

David K. Levine

Washington University in St. Louis - Department of Economics ( email )

One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.dklevine.com

European University Institute - Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS) ( email )

Villa La Fonte, via delle Fontanelle 18
50016 San Domenico di Fiesole
Florence, Florence 50014
Italy

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