Thesis--Helsinki. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [264]-269).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Florida, 1988. / Description based on print version record. Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Diss.--Zürich. / Bibliography: p. 7-9.

No description available.

This thesis is about the statutes of Acton Burnell (1283) and Merchants (1285) which provided for the voluntary registration of debts before specially established registries, and sophisticated measures of execution against the defaulting debtor's person, goods, and lands. The introduction describes the sources for this thesis; the London Recognisance rolls; the certificates of statute merchant into the Chancery; the Plea Rolls of the Royal courts and of local - principally, borough - courts. Chapter 1 describes the background to the statutes, in particular the recoverability of debts before Royal, local, and mercantile courts before 1283. Chapter 2 explores the immediate legal and political contexts of Acton Burnell. A draft of the statute is discussed and compared with the statute. The need for reform in 1285 is assessed, setting Merchants alongside Westminster II n c.39. The provisions under both statutory schemes for recognition and enrolment of the debt, and the initiation of execution are described. Chapter 4 examines execution against the debtor's movable property. The statutory appraisal, sale and delivery of the debtor's goods are examined and compared both with the draft provisions and common law modes of execution. Appraisers' liability under the statutes is examined. Competing execution against the same debtor is investigated. Chapter 5 examines the debtor's arrest and detention, gaolers' statutory liability, statutory costs and damages. It investigates the operation of the statutes once the debt had been satisfied, the mechanisms for obtaining the debtor's release, and challenges to unlawful imprisonment via the writ audita querela. Chapter 6 examines execution against the debtor's immovable property. The chapter discusses the 'extent' by which the debtor's lands were to be delivered to the creditor under Merchants, and the nature of the creditor's holding of his debtor's immovables (the tenancy 'by statute merchant').

This thesis presents three essays on the determinants and costs of corporate security offerings. The essays contribute to an ongoing debate in the literature on what determines firms’ security choice by examining the following issues: “Does corporate governance influence convertible debt issuance?”; “The signaling content of security offerings proceeds”; and “The costs of raising capital: New evidence.”In the first essay, we explore the influence of corporate governance on firms’ choice between equity, convertible debt and straight debt. For a sample of Western European corporate security offerings between 1999 and 2010, we find that firms with weaker firm- and country-specific corporate governance are more likely to issue convertible debt. They thus use convertible debt as a substitute for corporate governance, which is confirmed by a more favorable stock price reaction to convertible debt announcements by firms with weaker corporate governance. Moreover, these results suggest that corporate governance is a significant determinant of firms’ security choice. The second essay examines the determinants and signaling content of security offering proceeds, controlling for the endogeneity of issue size. For a sample of US equity, convertible debt and straight debt offerings between 1999 and 2011, the findings show that stockholders can partly predict issue size by analyzing firms’ funding needs and financing costs. We find that stockholders use predicted issue sizes of equity and convertible offerings as signals of growth opportunities, whilst larger than predicted issue sizes signal issuer overvaluation. For straight debt issues, we find that unpredicted issue sizes have a positive impact on announcement returns, which is consistent with them serving as a signal of growth opportunities. Further analysis of firms’ actual uses of predicted and unpredicted offering proceeds confirms these interpretations. The results shed light on previous inconsistent findings on the impact of issue size on security offering announcement returns. The final essay examines the magnitude and determinants of direct issuance costs, controlling for firms self-selecting into different security classes, namely equity, convertible bonds, and straight bonds, and flotation methods, namely non-shelf, shelf and 144a. For a recent sample of US corporate security offerings between 1999 and 2011, findings show that the magnitude of direct issuance costs has decreased over the last decade. These costs are higher for equity than straight bond offerings and of intermediate magnitude for convertible bond offerings. Within each security class, costs are larger for non-shelf than 144a offerings, which again have larger direct issuance costs than shelf offerings. Finally, underwriter spreads are directly related to underwriter effort on due diligence, pricing and selling, and direct issuance costs are truncated by firms’ self-selection into particular security types.

abstract

This dissertation assesses the importance of a specific debt instrument, the Certifi- cate of Obligation in the state of Texas. It conceptualizes the Certificate of Obligation as a type of contractual debt that enables local governments to finance their capital projects. This dissertation is guided by three research questions: (1) What are the various types of debt instruments employed by local governments and what are their relative advantages? (2) How prevalent is the use of a specific debt instrument such as Certificates of Obligation? And why would some local governments prefer to issue them while others do not? (3) To what extent does the local institutional environment, e.g., the executive authority of city managers in the council-manager form of government, affect debt financing behaviors of local governments? To examine the first research question, we created a typology to represent four ideal types of borrowing methods: (1) Contractual Debt, (2) Voter Approval/Special Tax Debt, (3) Guaranteed, and (4) Non-Guaranteed Debts. The typology examines whether or not the state mandates the referendum requirement for the use of each of these debt instruments, and at the same time determines whether each debt instrument is secured by multiple or single revenue sources. Using data we collected among municipal governments in Texas, we conducted two empirical analyses. The first analysis tests the hypothesis that Certificates of Obligation have higher borrowing costs compared to GO bonds, since a GO bond is often issued under the pledge of the bond issuers’ full-faith credit and taxing authority. We employed a two-stage least square analysis to test the general proposition in the state of Texas. Based on 741 Certificates of Obligation and GO bonds issued between 2008 and 2011, our analyses show that Certificates of Obligation are likely to incur True Interest Costs (TIC) similar to those of GO bonds. The second analysis explores factors explaining the use of Certificates of Obligation in 225 Texas charter cities. Based on Heckman’s two-stage, we found that a local government’s decision to issue Certificates of Obligation to be partly explained by the characteristics of local population, i.e., median household income, population growth, and the percentage of senior citizens living in the jurisdiction. In the case of GO bonds, we found that population size, property tax rate, debt burden, and the percentage of population with at least a college education, to be an important determinant of GO bonds. The volume of GO issuance by local governments was also related to the level of regional competition, i.e., government density. Additionally, we found that local political institutions matter and that they affect debt financing behaviors of local governments.

No description available.

No description available.