The website, Plastic Jungle, is taking advantage of the rapidly growing gift card phenomena by creating a secondary market that enables consumers to buy, sell, and exchange gift cards online at a discount. This paper examines the relationship between this secondary gift card market and the corporate bankruptcy risk of companies with gift cards listed on the market. When a company issues a gift card, the card is unsecured debt and the cardholder becomes an unsecured creditor to the company. This paper investigates whether the cardholder acts similarly to other unsecured creditors or as someone who is merely holding another form of cash. As was expected, this paper finds evidence indicating the spot price on the gift card is correlated to some forms of bankruptcy risk. Specifically, the gift cardholders act like unsecured creditors in terms of excess stock returns, CDS price, and the idiosyncratic risk of companies.

Sammanfattning Titel:                           Utökad möjlighet till skuldsanering för enskilda näringsidkare – Effekterna av lagändringen i skuldsaneringslagen (2006:548) Datum:                        2011-06-09 Lärosäte:                     Mälardalens Högskola, Västerås Institution:                  Akademin för hållbar samhälls- och teknikutveckling Nivå:                           Magisteruppsats i företagsekonomi, 15 hp Författare:                   Sandra Kohlin och Lina Lindberg Handledare:                Leif Carlsson Examinator:                Cecilia Lindh Problemformulering:   Kommer lagändringen i skuldsaneringslagen att uppfylla sitt syfte? Vilka effekter kommer förändringen i skuldsaneringslagen att medföra för enskilda näringsidkare? Syfte:                          Syftet med magisteruppsatsen är att beskriva den kommande lagändringen i skuldsaneringslagen (2006:548) rörande näringsidkare. Syftet är vidare att undersöka om lagändringen kommer att uppfylla sitt syfte samt att belysa och undersöka de troliga effekterna av dessa förändringar. Metod:                        En kvalitativ metod valdes till uppsatsen för att få en mer djupgående förståelse av ämnesområdet. Personliga intervjuer har genomförts för att samla in det empiriska materialet. För att komma fram till uppsatsens slutsats har referensramen och empirin jämförts med varandra. Slutsats:                      Syftet med lagändringen är att utöka möjligheten för näringsidkare att antingen starta upp igen efter ett misslyckande eller att fortsätta bedriva verksamhet. Den första delen av lagändringens syfte kommer att uppfyllas i och med att det kommer bli lättare för en näringsidkare att starta om efter ett misslyckat företagande. Den andra delen av syftet kommer inte att uppfyllas helt då endast ett fåtal aktiva näringsidkare kommer bli beviljade skuldsanering. Effekter som lagändringen kan medföra är att ansökningar om skuldsanering ökar, aktiva näringsidkare kan beviljas skuldsanering, fler överklagar skuldsaneringsbeslut, kostnaden för olika instanser ökar, trycket på kommunernas budget- och skuldrådgivare kan öka, fordringsägare kan erhålla mer betalt vid en skuldsanering än vid en konkurs och osunda företag kan lämna marknaden fortare. Nyckelord:                  Insolvenslagstiftning, risker och företagande, skuldsaneringslag, enskilda näringsidkare.

Bakgrund Regeringen ansåg trots införandet av 1994 års Skuldsaneringslag (1994:334) att man behövde en lösning på problemet att enskilda näringsidkare varken kunde bli beviljade skuldsanering eller företagsrekonstruktion för att på så sätt ha möjlighet att fortsätta bedriva sin verksamhet om de hamnat i ekonomiskt obestånd. 2007 tillsattes därför en särskild utredare som skulle utreda och lämna förslag om skuldnedsättning för enskilda näringsidkare. Denna utredning låg till grund för regeringens proposition som riksdagen oktober 2010 fattade beslut om. Problemformulering Vilka effekter har den nya Skuldsaneringslagen medfört för näringsidkare såväl som borgenärer? Syfte Vårt syfte med kandidatuppsatsen är att undersöka om införandet av den nya Skuldsaneringslagen (2006:548) gjort att de förväntade effekterna uppnåtts, samt om det inneburit att andra effekter uppstått. Metod Studiens syfte besvaras genom en personlig intervju samt flertalet enkäteter som har samlats in för det empiriska materialet. Bearbetningen av det empiriska materialet gjordes med en kvalitativ metod. Även remisser och propositioner har används för att hjälpa till att besvara kandidatuppsatsens syfte då referensramen och slutsatsen ställts mot varandra. Slutsats De faktiska effekter som den nya Skuldsaneringslagen (2006:548) inneburit är att enskilda näringsidkare kan skuldsanera om obeståndet beror på att denne inte kunnat arbeta under en längre period och därför hamnat i ekonomiskt trångmål. Vid ett ekonomiskt trångmål beaktas inte skuldernas ålder på samma sätt som tidigare vilket gjort att en gäldenär kan ansöka om skuldsanering i ett tidigare stadie. Att detta skulle bidra till försämrad betalningsmoral och förhöjda räntor visar sig oförändrad. Vid förändring av rekvisit såsom skuldernas ålder syns en tydlig effekt på antalet skuldsaneringsärenden. / Background The Government considered despite the introduction of the 1994 debt rescheduling act (1994:334) that a solution was needed to the problem that individual traders neither could be granted debt relief or corporate restructuring to thus be able to continue operations if they got into financial insolvency. Therefore in 2007 a special investigator was added to investigate and make proposals for debt relief for individual traders. This study was the basis for the Government bill that the Parliament in October 2010 decided upon. The main issue What impact has the new debt rescheduling act meant for traders as well as creditors? Purpose Our purpose of the bachelor thesis is to explore if the new debt rescheduling act (2006:548) has achieved the expected goals, the study will also investigate if the new debt rescheduling act has resulted in any other effects. Method The study's purpose is answered by a personal interview and several questionnaires that have been collected for the empirical material. The processing of the empirical material was made by a qualitative method. Referrals and propositions have also been used to help answer the bachelor thesis purpose, when the reference frame and the conclusion were set against each other. Conclusion The actual impact of the new debt rescheduling act (2006:548) is that individual traders can get debt relief if the insolvency was because the trader could not work for a long period of time and therefore ended up in financial trouble. In an insolvency situation the age of the debts are not considered in the same way as before, which meant that a debtor can apply for debt relief in an earlier stage. That this would contribute to deterioration in payment behavior and elevated interest rates appears unchanged. At the change of a criterion such as the age of the debt, a clear effect on the number of debt applications can be seen.

<p>Diss. Stockholm :  Stockholm School of Economics, 2013. Introduction together with 4 papers.</p>

Submitted by Rafael Ferreira (rafaelvxf@fgvmail.br) on 2011-03-22T17:57:50Z No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertation2.pdf: 309532 bytes, checksum: 71b1ba5388b33b95e83a99f8833db32e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Andrea Virginio Machado(andrea.machado@fgv.br) on 2011-03-22T18:33:06Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertation2.pdf: 309532 bytes, checksum: 71b1ba5388b33b95e83a99f8833db32e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2011-03-31T17:40:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertation2.pdf: 309532 bytes, checksum: 71b1ba5388b33b95e83a99f8833db32e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-12-15 / In early 2005 a new bankruptcy law was approved by the Brazilian Congress, taking effect a few months later. The new legislation improved creditor protection and the bankruptcy system’s efficiency. This paper tries to shed some light on the empirical consequences of a bankruptcy reform on a poorly developed credit market. Using data from Argentine, Brazilian, Chilean and Mexican firms, we estimated two diff-in-diff models with differential trends: one with a firm-specific trend and the other with a country-specific macro trend. Both models yielded similar results. We found significant impacts on the supply of credit, the cost of debt, and the supply of secured, unsecured and long-term debt. No significant impacts were found for the level of short-term debt. / No início de 2005, uma nova Lei de Falências foi aprovada pelo Congresso Nacional, entrando em meados de junho do mesmo ano. A nova legislação ampliou o grau de proteção ao credor em muitos aspectos. Este artigo busca investigar algumas das consequências empíricas dessa nova lei sobre o mercado de crédito, utilizado dados de firmas argentinas, brasileiras, chilenas e mexicanas para estimar dois modelos para dados em painel: o primeiro com tendências específicas para cada firma e o outro com tendência macro comum às firmas de um mesmo país. A estimação dos dois modelos produziu resultados similares. Foram encontrados impactos significativos sobre a oferta de crédito, o custo da dívida e a oferta de crédito segurado, não-segurado e de longo prazo. Não foram encontrados impactos sobre o total de dívida de curto prazo.

Le droit français des procédures collectives a connu pas mal de modifications ces dernières années. La profession d’administrateur judiciaire pour sa part, n'a également pas cessé d’évoluer avec des succès et des échecs qui ont attiré notre attention. Il s’agit d'examiner cette évolution pour la modernisation de la profession dans le contexte actuel de la mondialisation. En droit chinois il n’existait pas une vraie loi sur les procédures collectives au sens strict avant la publication de la nouvelle loi du 27 août 2006 sur la faillite d’entreprises. Par rapport à l’ancienne loi de 1986, la nouvelle loi adoptée après 12 ans d’élaboration, est venue apporter des changements importants et constitue un effort majeur pour constituer un système juridique correspondant au développement vers une économie de marché. Parmi de nouveaux régimes établis par la nouvelle loi 2006, nous notons que la mise en place du régime d’administrateur de faillite est un des plus remarquables. Toutefois étant un régime établi dans le droit de la faillite, qui lui- même est apparu assez récemment, le dispositif ne peut que fournir un cadre juridique pour l’administrateur de faillite. Pour autant, la recherche sur l’administrateur de faillite, s’investissant d’un rôle très important, dans les procédures collectives chinoises est sans aucun doute un sujet nécessaire et urgent. Espérant pouvoir faire progresser le régime chinois d’administrateur judiciaire vers une profession libérale juridique en s'inspirant de l’expérience française, nous traitons successivement la nature juridique de l’administrateur judiciaire du point de vue historique et de droit positif, les conditions d’accès aux fonctions d’administrateur judiciaire, ainsi que sa rémunération, ses fonctions, et sa responsabilité en droit français et en droit chinois. / In the last years, the French and Chinese Bankruptcy law has been quite changed. So has the profession of « Judicial administrators » (administrateurs judiciaires), with more or less success. Both the successes and failures of these changements have drawn our attention. Our scope is to analyse the evolution of this profession in the perspective of its modernisation in the today's context of a global economy. There was no specific Chinese Bankruptcy law until the publication of the new law of August 27th 2006 on Enterprise Bankruptcy. The new law which has been prepared for 12 years has brought some remarkable improvements to the existing law of 1986 and has been a major effort to build up a complete legal system in line with the modern open market economy. One of the most remarkable features of the new 2006 law has been the implementation of the « Judicial administrators » profession. Nevertheless, the « Judicial administrators » profession, who was established within the Bankruptcy Law, which has itself been defined quite recently, must only be considered but as an initial framework for the profession. Yet, as the « Judicial administrators » plays an important role in the Bankruptcy Law, making research on this subject appears to be both necessary and urgent. Our hope is to help transforming the « Judicial administrators » profession into a « liberal profession », similarly to their equivalents in the French system. We therefore analyse successively the juridical nature of the profession, from an historical point of view and in the perspective of the « effective law » (droit positif), the access conditions to this profession, its remuneration, the involved functions and responsibilities in both the French and Chinese law.

Since the 1980s, household debt has been increasing rapidly. The high level of household indebtedness has been accompanied by a high household bankruptcy rate. My research attempts to provide a better understanding of the theoretical mechanisms behind these credit market and bankruptcy statistics. One of the purposes of Chapter 7 bankruptcy law is to improve debtors' work incentives by giving them a ``fresh start''. Chapter 13 bankruptcy, on the other hand, prescribes a repayment plan that garnishes future wages from debtors to repay creditors, which acts like a wage tax in standard models. In the first chapter, I ask the question ``How much does a fresh start increase labor supply by improving work incentives?'' Because the bankruptcy decision is endogenous, Chapter 7 filers tend to have less earnings and more debt than average individuals. Estimation of the change in labor supply as a consequence of the bankruptcy treatment must therefore take into account selection effects which is complicated by the interdependence of labor and credit market decisions. To answer my question quantitatively, I construct a dynamic partial equilibrium job search model with both bankruptcy choices which allows direct assessment of counterfactual outcomes. Competitive financial intermediaries offer a menu of loan sizes and interest rates that make zero profits. The model predicts that in the short run, a fresh start on average increases the labor supply of Chapter 7 bankruptcy filers by 3.5% over repayment and 3.4% over Chapter 13 bankruptcy. the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) dictates that adverse events such as a Chapter 7 bankruptcy must be removed from an individual's credit record after ten years. The intent of the law is to provide partial consumption insurance by giving an individual a fresh start. However, the law obviously weakens incentives not to default, which can result in higher interest rates that in turn reduce intertemporal insurance. Because of this tradeoff, it is unclear what is the optimal length of time that an adverse event should be on an individual's credit record. In the second chapter, I assess the welfare consequences of varying the length of time that adverse events can be on one's credit record. We calibrate the model to US data where the exclusion parameter is for ten years. Then I run a counterfactual to find the length that maximizes ex-ante welfare. I find that the optimal length is much lower, specifically 2.5 years, than the current regulation and that the consumption equivalent welfare gain (slightly over 1%) of such a policy change is large. In the third chapter, I explore how such credit checks (information on observable credit market actions) might help with incentives in labor market when there is a monopolistic employer. According to a Survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (2010), 25% of human resource representatives interviewed in 1998 indicated that the companies they worked for ran credit checks on potential employees while the fraction increased to 43% in 2004 and 60% in 2009. Ever since Holmstrom (1979), we've known that wage contracts can be designed to improve incentives for workers. I show by means of example that if the employer can have wage contracts contingent upon the asset choice of employees, the profit may be increased. However, some employees may be worse off. We may then assess the welfare consequences of a law (the Equal Employment for All Act (H.R. 3149)) prohibiting the use of credit information in employment decisions which currently sits before Congress. / text

Cette thèse se compose de trois études sur le rôle du désaccord en économie. Dans le premier chapitre, j’étudie l’impact des incertitudes judiciaires sur le rôle du désaccord dans le marché financier. J’ai commencé par documenter et définir ces incertitudes judiciaires, de la manière la plus approfondie et détaillée possible. L’incertitude liée à la capacité imparfaite d’observation par des régulateurs est intitulée the monitoring problem, et celle liée à la pénalité et la possibilité de payer des amendes the enforceability problem. J’introduis ces concepts dans un modèle avec frictions financières. La simulation du modèle nous montre que la capacité d’observation des régulateurs détermine la stabilité ou la fragilité du secteur bancaire. Le coût du capital n’augmente pas beaucoup dans une économie avec des incertitudes judiciaires mais le taux de retour de l’économie à l’état stationnaire baisse. Par exemple le taux de retour de l’économie à l’état stationnaire (après avoir subi un choc externe de niveau moyen) dure en moyenne 7 – 12 trimestres. Je donne des arguments que cela est en raison de changement de qualité des actifs en présences des incertitudes judiciaires. Finalement, je regarde si le modèle simulé pourrait reprendre les fluctuations du cycle économique après la crise financière et il le fait bien. En outre je donne des arguments détaillés pour l’analyse des programmes de bien-être social en présence des incertitudes judiciaires. Dans le deuxième chapitre, j’étudie la volatilité due au désaccord dans le marché du travail. J’essaye d’identifier les sources de cette volatilité élevée de manière structurelle. Ainsi, j’utilise un vecteur autorégressif avec volatilité stochastique (Time Varying Parameter SVAR) pour investiguer les propriétés de la création d’emploi aux Etats-Unis et leurs variations dans le temps. Au vu des résultats, un choc technologique semble expliquer moins de 40% des fluctuations observées de la volatilité de la création d’emplois après les années 1980 et ils indiquent que la volatilité dépend largement des chocs de demande et de prix. Les postes vacants (autrement dit, la création d’emploi) réagissaient négativement aux chocs technologiques jusqu’au début des années 90. On retrouve la même tendance pour la période récente. Ce résultat est très important pour les autorités publiques car il remet en question la création d’emplois suite à de nouvelles technologies. Le troisième chapitre est consacré au désaccord sur le marché des prêts où je montre comment le droit des faillites pourrait intensifier le problème d’aléa moral entre une entreprise débitrice et ses créanciers. Ce chapitre essaye de faire un lien entre le droit des faillites et le coût du capital en étudiant le niveau de demande des clauses restrictives dans un contrat. L’hypothèse que je vais essayer de valider empiriquement est celle-ci : si le droit de faillite devient de plus en plus en faveur des entreprises, les créanciers mettent en place de plus en plus de clauses restrictives dans le contrat (c’est-à-dire cherchent à obtenir un contrôle renforcé sur le comportement des débiteurs). Je valide l’hypothèse susmentionnée et je montre qu’une clause restrictive additionnelle baisse le taux de rentabilité par 23 points de base. Ainsi, Je donne une nouvelle interprétation des clauses restrictive par rapport à la littérature. / In this thesis I have investigated three aspects of market frictions. Chapter 1 is about financial frictions, i.e. frictional forces prevailing in the financial lending markets and how monitoring and legal fines imposed on banks affect financial fragility. Chapter 2 explores the frictional labor market, i.e. frictional forces that prevent the smooth matching process between employees and employers in labor markets. In this chapter I investigate the sources of fluctuations in labor market volatility. Chapter 3 investigates the asymmetrical information in lending markets and how bankruptcy law could potentially affect this asymmetrical information between a borrower and its lenders. In Chapter 1, I have investigated the implications of legal fines and partial monitoring in a macro-finance model. This primary motivation of this work was the unprecedented level of fines banks faced in recent years. The research in this field is very sparse and this work is one of the few to fill in the void. I have tried investigating the implications of fines and partial monitoring in static and dynamic frameworks. There is partial monitoring in the sense that dubious behavior of intermediaries is not always observed with certainty. Moreover intermediaries can pay some litigation fees to mitigate the punishment for their conduct should they get caught. Several insights can be drawn from introducing such concepts in static and dynamic frameworks. Partial monitoring and legal fines make the incentive constraint of intermediaries more relaxed, in the sense that bankers are required to pledge less collateral to raise fund. This decrease in the asset pledgeability pushes the corporate spread down. In a dynamic set-up due to changes in asset qualities caused by such possibilities, recovery in output and credit become sluggish in response to an adverse financial shock. The dynamic implications of the model for the post-crisis period are investigated. This paper calls for further research to broaden our understandings in how legal settlements interact with banks' behaviors. In Chapter 2 (joint with Elisa Guglielminetti) I have investigated the time-varying property of job creation in the United States. Despite extensive documentation of the US labor market dynamics, evidence on its time-varying volatility is very hard to find. In this work I contribute to the literature by structurally investigating the time-varying volatility of the U.S. labor market. I address this issue through a time-varying parameter VAR (TVP-VAR) with stochastic volatility by identifying four structural shocks through imposing robust restrictions based on a New Keynesian DSGE model with frictional labor markets and a large set of shocks. The main findings are as follows. First, at business cycle frequencies, the lion share of the variance of job creation is explained by cost-push and demand shocks, thus challenging the conventional practice of addressing the labor market volatility puzzle à la Shimer under the assumption that technology shocks are the main driver of fluctuations in hiring. Second, technology shocks had a negative impact on job creation until the beginning of the '90s. This result is reminiscent of the “hours puzzle” à la Gali. In Chapter 3 (joint with Garence Staraci) I provide an additional rationale why creditors include covenants in their contracts. The central claim is that covenants are not only included as a means of shifting the governance from debtors to creditors, but also to potentially address the concerns creditors might have about how the bankruptcy law is practiced. To investigate this claim, I take advantage of the fact that covenants are nullified inside bankruptcy. This fact permits us to show that any change to the bankruptcy law affects the spread through changes that it brings to the contractual structure...

This work asserts that bureaucratic organization is not only an inevitable part of the modern administrative state, but that a high quality bureaucracy within a strongly empowered executive branch is an ideal mechanism for running government in the modern era. Beginning with a philosophical inquiry into the purpose of American government as we understand it today, this paper responds to criticisms of the role of expanded government and develops a framework for evaluating the quality of differing government structures. Following an evaluation of the current debate surrounding bureaucracies (from both proponents and critics), this thesis outlines the lessons and principles for structuring and managing an efficient bureaucracy. Finally, this paper concludes with two case studies – Puerto Rican bureaucratic failures and Japanese/Chinese national development – to consider the effects of compliance and non-compliance to the lessons outlined in this work. The inquiry finds that principles such as specialization, political autonomy, effective information systems, higher accountability standards, and managerial emphasis on policy implementation are all critical to superior bureaucratic governance.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:29:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Thomaz Henrique Junqueira de Andrade Pereira.pdf: 741655 bytes, checksum: a3d98f5a875a0dc0f2870f683496e1be (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-05-29 / The subject o this master thesis is the principles of the Brazilian reorganization and bankruptcy law . Its objective is to define the meaning of these principles, establishing: (i) the definition of what is to be understood as principles of reorganization and bankruptcy law ; (ii) the relation between what is protected by these principles and its possible restrictions; (iii) the normative efficacy of these principles. Based on this analysis, principles are understood as norms that, depending on the situation, may have the meaning of: (i) general norms, (ii) constitutive rules or (iii) optimization commands. Since the definitive content of these principles can only be determined in concrete by balancing them, so as to demonstrate utilization of the proposed model, two concrete cases are analyzed: (i) the constitutionality of the reorganization and bankruptcy law and (ii) the possibility of reorganizing a bankrupt company in continuance regime / O tema desta dissertação é os princípios do direito falimentar e recuperacional brasileiro e seu objetivo é determinar qual o significado jurídico de tais princípios , estabelecendo: (i) a definição daquilo que deve ser entendido por princípios do direito falimentar e recuperacional ; (ii) a relação entre o que é protegido pelos princípios do direito falimentar e recuperacional e suas possíveis restrições; (iii) a eficácia normativa de tais princípios. A partir dessa análise, princípios jurídicos são entendidos enquanto normas que podem ter, conforme o caso significado de (i) normas gerais, (ii) regras constitutivas ou (iii) mandamentos de otimização. Uma vez que o conteúdo definitivo de tais princípios só pode ser determinado no caso concreto por meio do sopesamento, com o objetivo de demonstrar o modelo proposto, é desenvolvida a análise de dois casos concretos: (i) a constitucionalidade da Lei de Recuperação de Empresa e Falência e (ii) a possibilidade de recuperação de empresa falida em regime de continuação