{"title":"Creditors’ Rights and Strategic Default: Evidence from India","authors":"Prasanna Tantri","doi":"10.1086/708161","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"I examine whether stronger creditors’ rights prevent strategic default. Borrowers who cross either of two thresholds are exempt from a creditor-rights law in India. Using a loan-day-level data set, I find that loan performance is better when the law applies and that outperformance increases after a further rise in creditors’ rights. To discern the strategic motive, I use an unprecedented invalidation of the Indian currency whereby holders of high-value currency were forced to declare their cash holdings to banks. Defaulters exempt from the law showed a greater tendency to repay their loans after invalidation.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"31 1","pages":"411 - 447"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2020-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"7","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"The Journal of Law and Economics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1086/708161","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 7
Abstract
I examine whether stronger creditors’ rights prevent strategic default. Borrowers who cross either of two thresholds are exempt from a creditor-rights law in India. Using a loan-day-level data set, I find that loan performance is better when the law applies and that outperformance increases after a further rise in creditors’ rights. To discern the strategic motive, I use an unprecedented invalidation of the Indian currency whereby holders of high-value currency were forced to declare their cash holdings to banks. Defaulters exempt from the law showed a greater tendency to repay their loans after invalidation.