LP模型中文版

INFORMATIONAL ASYMMETRIES, FINANCIAL STRUCTURE, AND

FINANCIAL INTERMEDIATION 信息不对称、融资结构和金融中介

HAYNE E. LELAND AND DAVID H. PYLE**

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

NUMEROUS MARKETS ARE characterized by informational differences between buyers and sellers. In financial markets, informational asymmetries are particularly pronounced. Borrowers typically know their collateral, industriousness, and moral rectitude better than do lenders; entrepreneurs possess \about their own projects for which they seek financing. 买卖双方之间的信息不对称存在于许多市场。在金融市场中，信息不对称表现得尤为明显。借款人通常比贷款人更为了解他们的抵押品、能力及品德；企业家拥有他们寻求融资的项目的“内部”信息。

Lenders would benefit from knowing the true characteristics of borrowers. But moral hazard hampers the direct transfer of information between market participants. Borrowers cannot be expected to be entirely straightforward about their characteristics, nor entrepreneurs about their projects, since there may be substantial rewards for exaggerating positive qualities. And verification of true characteristics by outside parties may be costly or impossible. 贷款人将从了解借款人的真实特征中受益。但道德风险阻碍了市场参与者之间信息的直接传递。由于夸大好的特征会获得丰厚回报，我们不能指望借款人和企业家对他们的特点和项目完全坦诚。而外部当事人对借款人和企业项目的真实特征的核查可能是成本高昂或不可能的。

Without information transfer, markets may perform poorly. Consider the financing of projects whose quality is highly variable. While entrepreneurs know the quality of their own projects, lenders cannot distinguish among them. Market value, therefore, must reflect average project quality. If the market were to place an average value greater than average cost on projects, the potential supply of low quality projects may be very large, since entrepreneurs could foist these upon an uninformed market (retaining little or no equity) and make a sure profit. But this argues that the average quality is likely to be low, with the consequence that even projects which are known (by the entrepreneur) to merit financing cannot be undertaken because of the high cost of capital resulting from low average project quality. Thus, where substantial information asymmetries exist and where the supply of poor projects is large relative to the supply of good projects, venture capital markets may fail to exist. 市场可能由于缺少信息传递而表现不佳。考虑融资项目的质量是高度可变的。由于企业家了解自己项目的质量，而贷款人无法判别。因此，项目的市场价值必须反映市场上项目的平均质量。若市场认为项目的平均质量大于项目的平均成本，低质量项目的潜在供应量可能非常大，这是因为企业家可以在一个信息不足的市场上为低质量项目融资（保留很少或不保留股权），从而得到确定性利润。这说明项目的平均质量可能会比较低，而较低的平均质量会导致较高的资本成本，这会使本能得到融资的项目（理解：项目的质量高。在信息对称的情况下，该项目能以较低的资本成本获得融资从而顺利进行。在信息不对称情况下，资本成本过高，项目无法进行。）无法进行。因此，当存在严重的信息不对称，从而低质量项目相对于高质量项目大量供应时，

风险资本市场可能不存在。

For projects of good quality to be financed, information transfer must occur. We have argued that moral hazard prevents direct information transfer. Nonetheless, information on project quality may be transferred if the actions of entrepreneurs (\speak louder than words\rules, is the willingness of the person(s) with inside information to invest in the project or firm. This willingness to invest may serve as a signal to the lending market of the true quality of the project; lenders will place a value on the project that reflects the information transferred by the signal. 为了使高质量项目获得融资，信息传递必须顺利进行。我们已经提到道德风险会妨碍直接的信息传递。尽管如此，若企业家的行为（“说话胜于雄辩”）可以被观察到，项目质量的信息可能会被传递出来。行为之一是拥有内部信息的人投资该项目或公司的意愿，这些行为之所以可以被观测到是因为信息披露规则。这种投资意愿可以被视作信贷市场上项目真实质量的一种信号，贷款人将基于信号传递的信息对项目估值。

As shown by the seminal work of Akerlof [1970] and Spence [1973], and by the subsequent contributions of Rothschild and Stiglitz [1975] and Riley [1975, 1976], equilibrium in markets with asymmetric information and signalling may have quite different properties from equilibrium either with no information transfer, or with direct and costless information transfer. Signalling equilibria may not exist, may not be sustainable, and may not be economically efficient. 如阿克洛夫[ 1970 ]和斯彭斯[ 1973 ]的开创性工作，罗斯柴尔德、斯蒂格利茨[ 1975 ]和赖利[ 1975，1976 ]随后的贡献所示，在信息不对称的市场中，信号均衡和无信息传递时的均衡，或是存在直接和无成本的信息传递时的均衡可能有完全不同的性质。信号均衡可能是不存在的，可能是不可持续的，也可能是非经济效率的。

In subsequent sections, we develop a simple model of capital structure and financial equilibrium in which entrepreneurs seek financing of projects whose true qualities are known only to them. We show that the entrepreneur's willingness to invest in his own project can serve as a signal of project quality. The resulting equilibrium differs importantly from models which ignore informational asymmetries. The value of the firm increases with the share of the firm held by the entrepreneur. In contrast with Modigliani and Miller [1958], the financial structure of the firm typically will be related to project or firm value even when there are no taxes.' And firms with riskier returns will have lower debt levels even when there are no bankruptcy costs. Signaling incurs welfare costs by inducing entrepreneurs to take larger equity positions in their own firms than they would if information could be directly transferred; we show, however, that the set of investment projects which are undertaken will coincide with the set which would be undertaken if direct information transfer were possible. Finally, we suggest that financial intermediation, which is difficult to explain in traditional models of financial equilibrium, can be viewed as a natural response to asymmetric information. 在随后的章节中，我们构建一个简单的资本结构和财务平衡模型，在该模型中，只有寻求项目融资的企业家了解项目的真正质量。我们说明了，企业家投资于自己项目的意愿可以作为项目质量的一个信号，由此产生的均衡和忽略信息不对称的模型的均衡显著不同。公司价值随着企业家持股比例的增加而增加。与莫迪利亚尼和米勒（1958）的结论相反，公司的资本结构通常与项目或公司价值相关，

甚至是在没有税收的情况下。风险回报更高的公司即使没有破产成本也会有更低的债务水平。和信息可以直接传递时相比，信号会使企业家持有更多自己公司的股权，这会产生福利成本。然而，我们的研究表明，正在进行的投资项目的集合会与在直接的信息传递可行时将进行的项目一致。最后，我们认为，在传统的金融均衡模型中很难解释的金融中介，可以被看作是一个对不对称信息的自然反应。

Consider now the relationship between value V and debt D of seemingly similar projects. By \on u view the projects as identical. Since both V and D are positive functions of a, and therefore of u, a regression of value on debt would show a positive relationship。现在考虑看似类似的项目的公司价值V和债务D之间的关系。“看似相似”的项目是指，没有关于u的内部信息的观察者认为项目是相同的。由于V和D都是α的增函数，因此，V和D有正相关关系。

Does this invalidate the Modigliani-Miller theorem that value is independent of capital structure? Not really. In the MM world with symmetric information, a change in D will not change the project's perceived returns, and financial structure will be irrelevant. In a world with asymmetric information in which α can be observed, a change in D with a constant will not change perceived returns, and financial structure will also be irrelevant. But we have argued that observed D, given small transactions costs, will be related to α. And a change in α does give rise to a change in perceived returns and therefore in market value. Thus there is a statistical but not a causal relation between V and D of seemingly similar firms.这是否说明Modigliani Miller定理——公司价值与资本结构不相关是无效的呢？不能这么认为。在具有对称信息的MM世界中，D的变化不会改变项目的预期收益，从而和资本结构是不相关的。在一个信息不对称的世界中，α是可以观察到的，D的一个常数变化不会改变项目预期价值，从而与资本结构也将是无关的。但我们在前文已经证明了，当交易成本较小时，观察到的D将与α相关。α的变化会引起预期回报的变化，从而导致市场价值的变化。因此，类似的公司的V和D之间存在统计上的而非因果上的关系。

If transactions costs were sufficiently high, or institutions such that borrowing through the firm entirely precluded lending privately, then D itself could serve as a signal of u and therefore of firm value, since a choice of D would (through the budget constraint) determine a unique choice of a; D as well as α would then be a function of u and could serve as a signal. But when transactions costs are minimal, D cannot serve as a signal, since entrepreneurs with any u would be willing to incur small transactions costs to have (say) high D's in order to receive a high project value, while at the same time choosing Y so that α remained at a level appropriate to their true u. Thus ，D could not serve as a signal with equilibrium properties. 如果交易成本足够高，或者通过公司借贷的机构可以完全排除私人借贷机构，那么，D本身可以作为u以及公司价值的一个信号。这是因为对D的选择可以通过预算约束唯一确定一个对α的选择；D以及α将是u的函数，从而可以作为一个信号。但当交易成本最小时，D不能作为一个信号。这是因为，拥有任何u的企业家都愿意为了得到高的项目价值而承担高负债带来的较小的交易成本（理解：V和D是正相