Derivatives Supply and Corporate Hedging: Evidence from the Safe Harbor Reform of 2005 Erasmo Giambona Ye Wang Syracuse University, Whitman School Shanghai University of Finance and of Management Economics
[email protected] [email protected] This Draft: September 1, 2017 Abstract This paper analyzes the importance of supply-side frictions for corporate hedging. To identify this relationship, we exploit a regulatory change that allows derivatives counterparties to circumvent the Bankruptcy Code’s automatic stay and preference rules: The Safe Harbor Reform of 2005. Following the reform-induced expansion in the availability of derivatives, fuel hedging of airlines near financial distress (those that benefited the most from the reform) increased significantly relative to financially sound airlines. Similarly, we find that hedging propensity increased for a general sample of non-financial firms. In line with theory, we also find that firm’s value and performance increased after the 2005 reform for the affected firms. Our analysis provides also evidence consistent with unsecured creditor “runs”. Keywords: supply-side frictions, safe harbor reform, fuel hedging, airlines, firm's value, unsecured creditor runs. * Erasmo Giambona, Michael J. Falcone Chair of Real Estate Finance, Syracuse University, 721 University Avenue, Syracuse, NY 13244-2450, USA. Ye Wang, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, 777 Guoding Road, Shanghai, Shanghai 200433, China. We are grateful for comments from Murillo Campello and seminar participants at the University of Amsterdam. 1. Introduction Economic theory suggests that firms hedge to mitigate credit rationing (Froot, Scharfstein, and Stein, 1993; Holmström and Tirole, 2000), to reduce information asymmetry (DeMarzo and Duffie, 1991, 1995; Breeden and Viswanathan, 2016), or to alleviate the risk of financial distress (Smith and Stulz, 1985; Stulz, 2013).