The aim of this paper is to explore how debt contracts are affected by investment in asset specialization and by the dynamics of the secondary market for collateralized productive assets. Before applying for a loan, financially constrained firms face a specificity trade-off: asset specialization increases firms’ project returns, but decreases the liquidation value of assets in the secondary market if the firm is in financial distress. To study this trade-off, the paper uses a theoretical model in which the choice of asset specificity and the outcome of the secondary market for distressed firms’ assets are endogenous. High redeployability costs and a small number of participants in the secondary market are associated to low recovery values and to a high cost of debt. The paper shows the conditions under which financial constraints reduce firms’ incentive to invest in asset specificity.

本文的目的是探讨如何通过资产专业化投资和抵押生产性资产二级市场的动态来影响债务合同。在申请贷款之前，受财务约束的公司面临特殊的权衡：资产专业化会增加公司的项目收益，但如果公司陷入财务困境，则会降低二级市场资产的清算价值。为了研究这种折衷，本文使用一种理论模型，其中不良资产的资产特异性选择和二级市场的结果是内生的。较高的可重新部署成本和二级市场中的参与者较少，这与较低的回收价值和较高的债务成本有关。