In this section we examine the effect of the APR on the social efficiency
of private parties' incentives to liquidate or continue an already failing firm.
We first define a socially efficient condition for continuing a failing firm and
then consider the circumstances under which the APR gives private parties incentives
to make socially efficient decisions.
We take as a starting point the coalition model of bankruptcy presented by
Bulow and Shoven (1978). We assume that there are three classes of creditors
with claims on the firm: the bank (B), bondholders (D), and equity holders
(E). Thus, there are no claims for taxes, lawyers' fees, wages, or rents. However,
the bank can represent a variety of types of unsecured or secured creditors.
Continuance is assumed to occur if a bank loans the firm enough cash to
meet its current period obligations. We assume that the loan comes from a bank,
rather than from a new bond or stock issue: since the bank is an insider, the