Lender's risk incentive and debt concession

This paper demonstrates that a lender's risk incentive may render it difficult to conduct efficient debt renegotiation. When a lending bank has a risk incentive, the bank is not likely to make a debt concession, even though such a concession could resolve inefficiencies caused by a borrower's risk incentive. If the lender refrains from renegotiation the debt, then the borrowing firm chooses a value-decreasing risky project. As a result, the cash flow that the lending bank collects becomes risky, and the wealth of the bank's shareholders increases. The lender's risk incentive thus accelerates the borrower's risk incentive.