Topic: The Real Effect of Financial Innovation: Evidence from Credit Default Swaps Trading and Corporate Innovation

Speaker: Xin (Simba) Chang, Senior Lecturer of Finance, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge

Date: May 18^th (Wed.)

Time: 1:30pm-2:30pm

Location: Building 4, Room 101

Language: English

Abstract:

We document that credit default swaps (CDS) trading on a firm’s debt positively influences its technological innovation measured using patents and patent citations. The positive effect is more pronounced for firms relying more on debt financing, using more bank debt, borrowing from fewer lenders, having more restrictive debt covenants, or using more short-term debt prior to CDS introduction. Further analysis shows that firms’ innovation strategies become more risky and long-term oriented after the advent of CDS trading. These results suggest that CDS foster borrowing firms’ innovation via enhancing lenders’ risk tolerance and borrowers’ risk taking in the innovation process. Taken together, our findings reveal the real effects of financial innovation (i.e., CDS) on companies’ investment and technological progress.

About the speaker:

Simba Chang is a tenured Associate Professor at Nanyang Business School of Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Currently he is also appointed as a Senior Lecturer at Cambridge Judge Business School of the University of Cambridge. He specializes in corporate finance, especially capital structure, mergers and acquisitions, and equity valuation. Professor Chang earned a Ph.D. in Finance in 2004 from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His educational background also includes a M.Phil. from the Graduate School of People’s Bank of China in 1998. He has paper published in Journal of Finance and Financial Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, and Accounting and Finance among others.