CORPORATE DOLLAR DEBT AND DEPRECIATIONS: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bleakley, Hoyt; Cowan, Kevin
• 署名单位: University of Chicago; Central Bank of Chile
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/rest.90.4.612
• 发表日期: 2008-11
• 页码: 612-626
• 关键词: exchange-rate; governance; devaluation

摘要

Emerging-markets firms often carry foreign-currency debt on their balance sheets. Following a depreciation, the expanding peso value of dollar liabilities could, via a net-worth effect, offset the expansionary competitiveness effect. To assess which effect dominates, we use accounting data (including the currency composition of liabilities) for 450+ nonfinancial firms in five Latin American countries in the 1990s. We find that firms holding more dollar debt do not invest less than their pesoindebted counterparts following a depreciation. We also show that these firms match the currency denomination of their liabilities with the exchange rate sensitivity of their profits.