in a much referenced passage pointed out
that a set of efficient institutional arrangements would require that bondholders
be paid before stockholders, that lower priority bonds be retired before higher
priority bonds, and that part of a bond issue not be retired without retiring the
whole issue. These practices have become known as "me-first rules". Fama and
Miller argued that if me-first rules were in effect and firms' investment policies
were fixed, managers would have incentives to act efficiently and to maximize
the value of the firm.2
The goal of this paper is to analyze the economic effects of bankruptcy
law, with no ex ante assumptions concerning whether the law is efficient. We
consider in our analysis both the effects of Fama and Miller's me-first rules
and those of several other rules which come closer to formalizing actual
bankruptcy practices. Unlike Fama and Miller, we do not assume the firm's
investment decisions to be fixed. Rather, we model explicitly the interrelationship
between firms' economic and financial decisions. Further, we assume that
transactions are not costless, and that the pattern of transactions which does
occur will reflect the relative costs of particular groups' bargaining with each
other. Also, we assume that a firm facing a financial crisis will either
continue (i.e., meet its current obligations in full) or be liquidated. Reorganization
is ruled out.
The legal procedure in a liquidation (or straight bankruptcy) is fairly
straightforward. A court-appointed trustee sells the firm's assets, and creditors
are paid in full for their claims in the following order: first, administrative
expenses of bankruptcy, including lawyers' fees and other expenses incurred
after the start of bankruptcy proceedings; second, taxes; third, wages up to
$600 per worker and rent due to landlords; fourth, unsecured creditors; and
last, equity holders. Secured creditors having liens on particular assets can reclaim
their property or its value. If their claims exceed the value of the security,
they become unsecured creditors for the remainder. Bondholders, bank lenders,
and trade creditors each may be secured, unsecured, or partially secured
creditors. If many claimants, such as unsecured creditors, have the same
priority, then all are paid an equal fraction of the face value of their claims.
We refer to the general ordering of claims as the absolute priority rule
(APR) and the division within classes of creditors having the same priority as
the proportionate priority rule (PPR). Note that the me-first rule is a special
case of the APR when bondholders are fully secured and all other claimants
are unsecured.
How likely are these rules to be applied in practice? An examination of
liquidation cases suggests that there are many possible legal maneuvers which
can push up or down particular creditors' priority. For example, while creditors
must be notified of the failing firm's bankruptcy petition, each creditor
bears the burden of coming forward and proving his claim. Thus, small claims
may not be asserted because of high transactions costs. Also, secured creditors'