Covenants and Collateral as Incentives to Monitor

JOURNAL OF FINANCE, Vol. 50 No. 4, September 1995

Posted: 13 Oct 1995

See all articles by Raghuram G. Rajan

Raghuram G. Rajan

University of Chicago - Booth School of Business; International Monetary Fund (IMF); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Andrew Winton

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - Carlson School of Management; Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) - Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance (SAIF)

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Abstract

Although monitoring borrowers is thought to be a major function of financial institutions, the presence of other claimants reduces an institutional lender's incentive to engage in costly monitoring. Thus loan contracts must be structured so as to enhance this incentive. Short-term debt gives the lender the power to force renegotiation or liquidation when the debt matures, but this ability is not contingent on monitoring. By contrast, covenants make the loan's effective maturity, and the ability to collateralize makes the loan's effective priority, contingent on monitoring by the lender. Thus both covenants and collateral can be motivated as contractual devices that increase a lender's incentive to monitor. These results are consistent with a number of stylized facts about the use of covenants and collateral in institutional lending.

JEL Classification: G21 and G32

Suggested Citation

Rajan, Raghuram G. and Winton, Andrew, Covenants and Collateral as Incentives to Monitor. JOURNAL OF FINANCE, Vol. 50 No. 4, September 1995, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6804

Raghuram G. Rajan

University of Chicago - Booth School of Business ( email )

5807 S. Woodlawn Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
United States
773-702-4437 (Phone)
773-702-0458 (Fax)

International Monetary Fund (IMF) ( email )

700 19th Street NW
Washington, DC 20431
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States
773-702-9299 (Phone)
773-702-0458 (Fax)

Andrew Winton (Contact Author)

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - Carlson School of Management ( email )

321 19th Avenue South
Department of Finance
Minneapolis, MN 55455
United States
612-624-0589 (Phone)
612-626-1335 (Fax)

Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) - Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance (SAIF) ( email )

Shanghai Jiao Tong University
211 West Huaihai Road
Shanghai, 200030
China

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Abstract Views
3,300
PlumX Metrics