The Journal of Finance

The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.

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Collateral, Risk Management, and the Distribution of Debt Capacity

Published: 11/09/2010   |   DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2010.01616.x

ADRIANO A. RAMPINI, S. VISWANATHAN

Collateral constraints imply that financing and risk management are fundamentally linked. The opportunity cost of engaging in risk management and conserving debt capacity to hedge future financing needs is forgone current investment, and is higher for more productive and less well‐capitalized firms. More constrained firms engage in less risk management and may exhaust their debt capacity and abstain from risk management, consistent with empirical evidence and in contrast to received theory. When cash flows are low, such firms may be unable to seize investment opportunities and be forced to downsize. Consequently, capital may be less productively deployed in downturns.


Retracted: Risk Management in Financial Institutions

Published: 12/12/2019   |   DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12868

ADRIANO A. RAMPINI, S. VISWANATHAN, GUILLAUME VUILLEMEY

We study risk management in financial institutions using data on hedging of interest rate and foreign exchange risk. We find strong evidence that institutions with higher net worth hedge more, controlling for risk exposures, across institutions and within institutions over time. For identification, we exploit net worth shocks resulting from loan losses due to declines in house prices. Institutions that sustain such shocks reduce hedging significantly relative to otherwise‐similar institutions. The reduction in hedging is differentially larger among institutions with high real estate exposure. The evidence is consistent with the theory that financial constraints impede both financing and hedging.