The Maturity Premium

Description

We analyze asset-pricing implications of debt maturity. Firms with long debt maturities have weaker incentives to delever after negative shocks and therefore exhibit high leverage and high betas during downturns when the market price of risk is high. They also increase leverage less aggressively during booms. Thus, the betas of firms with longer debt maturities covary more with the market price of risk. As a result, they generate higher expected returns, controlling for average exposure to systematic risk. We demonstrate this in a model and document empirically a 0.21% monthly premium for buying long-maturity financed firms and selling those with shorter debt maturities.

Period	24 Apr 2019
Event title	Forschungsseminar
Event type	Unkonwn