This paper explores the effects of public information such as accounting earnings in a competitive lending setting with risk shifting. Debt financing creates incentives for borrowers to take on excessive risks, in particular in bad states of the world. If a privately informed inside creditor bids against outside creditors to extend a loan, public information levels the playing field, which affects the bidding and risk shifting. Nonetheless, a perfect public signal would yield the least efficient outcome: introducing some measurement noise alleviates risk shifting by subjecting outside creditors to the winner’s curse, allowing borrowers in bad states cheaper access to loans. However, for pessimistic priors about the borrower, greater public signal precision can alleviate risk shifting, at the margin. We discuss implications for financial reporting regulations along the business cycle and for creditor turnover.

中文翻译：

---

会计信息和债权人信息不对称的风险转移

本文探讨了会计收益等公共信息在具有风险转移的竞争性贷款环境中的影响。债务融资会刺激借款人承担过度风险，特别是在世界经济状况不佳的情况下。如果私下知情的内部债权人与外部债权人竞标以延长贷款，公共信息会创造公平的竞争环境，从而影响竞标和风险转移。尽管如此，完美的公共信号会产生效率最低的结果：引入一些衡量噪音，通过让外部债权人遭受赢家诅咒来减轻风险转移，从而使状况不佳的借款人能够以更便宜的价格获得贷款。然而，对于借款人的悲观先验，更高的公共信号精度可以在一定程度上缓解风险转移。我们讨论了对整个商业周期的财务报告监管和债权人周转率的影响。