In the traditional literature on firm models it is generally accepted that secured debt reduces the agency costs of debt, as it alleviates the underinvestment and overinvestment problems. We demonstrate that secured debt can also produce the opposite effects. Under the [Merton 1974, On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates, Journal of Finance 29, 442–470] framework, we provide numerical examples where junior secured debt produces underinvestment and senior and all-assets secured debt bring about overinvestment. Project financing and independent-firm financing eliminate these problems but may induce suboptimal decisions for shareholders. We show that shareholders will finance a project as an independent firm if its net present value is sufficiently high. Otherwise, they are better off financing the project with all-assets secured debt.

中文翻译：

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担保债务、代理问题和公司的经典模式

在关于公司模型的传统文献中，普遍认为有担保债务降低了债务的代理成本，因为它缓解了投资不足和投资过度问题。我们证明有担保债务也会产生相反的效果。在 [Merton 1974, On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates, Journal of Finance 29, 442-470] 框架下，我们提供了数字示例，其中初级担保债务导致投资不足，高级和全资产担保债务带来关于过度投资。项目融资和独立公司融资消除了这些问题，但可能会导致股东做出次优决策。我们表明，如果项目的净现值足够高，股东将作为独立公司为项目融资。否则，