Discussion of “Borrower private information covenants and loan contract monitoring”

Carrizosa and Ryan (2017) explore the use of private information covenants, which contractually oblige borrowers to disclose projected and intra-quarter financial statements. The authors provide evidence that creditors acquire private information about borrowers via these covenants. This facilitates the monitoring process, subject to a cost-benefit tradeoff. I discuss how the study fits into the literature and contend that the costs associated with information covenants are less clear and have yet to be established. I discuss complementary information mechanisms and raise several research design issues. I also argue that the study sheds light on an open question in the disclosure literature.