We examine the effect of the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) regulatory oversight on private debt contracting outcomes, using the signing of the multilateral memorandum of understanding (MMoU) as a natural experiment. The MMoU enables the SEC to take stricter punitive actions against wealth expropriation by cross‐listed firms’ insiders and enforce better compliance with applicable rules and regulations. We find that enhanced SEC oversight in the post‐MMoU regime lowers loan spreads by 36 basis points, thus saving an average cross‐listed firm approximately $9 million in direct loan costs over the life of a bank loan. Cross‐sectional analyses show that the effect is more pronounced for borrowers from countries with weaker institutions, borrowers with greater accounting discretion, and for loans arranged by top lenders or loans not secured by collateral. Conversely, the effect is less pronounced for borrowers who use IFRS or when the SEC faces greater budgetary constraints. Enhanced SEC oversight also leads to an increase in loan maturity and a decrease in financial covenants. Our evidence suggests that while the SEC's primary mandate is to protect public equity and bond investors, its supervision yields substantial borrowing cost savings and more lenient nonprice loan terms in the private debt markets as well.

中文翻译：

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美国证券交易委员会监管对私人债务合同的溢出效应：来自交叉上市外国公司的证据


我们以签署多边谅解备忘录 （MMoU） 为自然实验，研究了美国证券交易委员会 （SEC） 的监管监督对私人债务合同结果的影响。MMoU 使 SEC 能够对跨上市公司内部人士的财富征收采取更严厉的惩罚行动，并更好地遵守适用的规则和法规。我们发现，在后 MMoU 制度中加强 SEC 的监管可将贷款利差降低 36 个基点，从而在银行贷款期限内为交叉上市公司平均节省约 900 万美元的直接贷款成本。横断面分析表明，对于来自机构较弱国家的借款人、具有更大会计自由裁量权的借款人以及由顶级贷款人安排的贷款或无抵押担保的贷款，这种影响更为明显。相反，对于使用 IFRS 的借款人或 SEC 面临更大的预算限制时，这种影响就不那么明显了。加强 SEC 监督还会导致贷款期限的增加和财务契约的减少。我们的证据表明，虽然 SEC 的主要任务是保护公共股票和债券投资者，但其监管可以节省大量借贷成本，并在私人债务市场提供更宽松的非价格贷款条款。