CEO财务经历与资本结构决策

本文以发生CEO变更事件的中国上市公司为研究样本,利用双重差分模型,检验了CEO的财务经历对资本结构决策的影响。实证结果表明:财务经历CEO显著提高了公司的负债水平,加快了资本结构的调整速度,并降低了资本结构偏离目标的程度,这说明财务经历的CEO对公司资本结构决策具有重要且正面的影响。同时,我们发现,只有在第一大股东持股比例较低的情况下,财务经历CEO才能对资本结构决策有显著影响,这表明财务经历的CEO对资本结构的优化是有一定条件的。     

Capital Structure and Debt Priority

We study a defaultable firm's debt priority structure in a simple structural model where the firm issues senior and junior bonds and is subject to both liquidity and solvency risks. Assuming that the absolute priority rule prevails and that liquidation is immediate upon default, we determine the firm's interior optimal priority structure along with its optimal capital structure. We also obtain closed‐form solutions for the market values of the firm's debt and equity. We find that the magnitude of the spread differential between junior and senior bond yields is positively, but not linearly related to the total debt level and the riskiness of assets. Finally, we provide an in‐depth analysis of probabilities of default and the term structure of credit spreads.     

Capital Structure and the Informational Role of Debt

This paper provides a theory of capital structure based on the effect of debt on investors' information about the firm and on their ability to oversee management. We postulate that managers are reluctant to relinquish control and unwilling to provide information that could result in such an outcome. Debt is a disciplining device because default allows creditors the option to force the firm into liquidation and generates information useful to investors. We characterize the time path of the debt level and obtain comparative statics results on the debt level, bond yield, probability of default, probability of reorganization, etc.     

资本管制对融资结构和经济增长的影响

本文发现如果短期债券融资伴有发生资产清算的风险,那么,运用资本管制政策调整融资结构有助于促进经济增长。通过整理78个国家从1995到2010年的资本管制数据,我们检验了对不同类别的资产进行管制对经济增长的影响:对债券进行管制能够促进经济增长;对股票进行资本管制阻碍了经济增长;而对直接投资进行资本管制对经济增长的影响不显著。最后,我们考察了资本管制对资本流动组成结构的调整作用,验证了资本管制影响经济增长的机制。     

Internal Capital Markets and Capital Structure: Bank Versus Internal Debt

We argue that domestic business groups are able to actively optimise the internal/external debt mix across their subsidiaries. Novel to the literature, we use bi‐level data (i.e. data from both individual subsidiary financial statements and consolidated group level financial statements) to model the bank and internal debt concentration of non‐financial Belgian private business group affiliates. As a benchmark, we construct a size and industry matched sample of non‐group affiliated (stand‐alone) companies. We find support for a pecking order of internal debt over bank debt at the subsidiary level which leads to a substantially lower bank debt concentration for group affiliates as compared to stand‐alone companies. The internal debt concentration of a subsidiary is mainly driven by the characteristics of the group's internal capital market. The larger its available resources, the more intra‐group debt is used while bank debt financing at the subsidiary level decreases. However, as the group's overall debt level mounts, groups increasingly locate bank borrowing in subsidiaries with low costs of external financing (i.e. large subsidiaries with important collateral assets) to limit moral hazard and dissipative costs. Overall, our results are consistent with the existence of a complex group wide optimisation process of financing costs.     

Valuing Debt in a Complex Capital Structure

This article extends previous bond valuation models to account for more realistic assumptions regarding financial distress. Realized value of an individual bond under severe financial distress will reflect the expected outcome of credit-event negotiations and the relative priority listing of the security. We explicitly represent the probability rate of credit-event occurrence as a function of firm value relative to the fixed overall debt obligations of the firm. Risk premiums generated under reasonable parameter value choices fall within the range of observed bond risk premiums. Our model also provides an explanation as to why observed bond risk premia are positive after adjustment for default.     

债务异质性假说与资本结构选择理论的新解释

西方资本结构选择理论是有局限性的。建立在债务同质性假说基础上的西方资本结构选择理论对中国企业资本结构缺乏足够的解释力,因为针对经营性负债与金融性负债的异质性假说更符合中国国情。经营性负债与金融性负债是具有异质性和互补性的两类负债,依恃债务异质性假说,主流的啄食顺序理论和权衡理论都需要重新解释。     

Optimal Capital Structure and Industry Dynamics

This paper provides a competitive equilibrium model of capital structure and industry dynamics. In the model, firms make financing, investment, entry, and exit decisions subject to idiosyncratic technology shocks. The capital structure choice reflects the tradeoff between the tax benefits of debt and the associated bankruptcy and agency costs. The interaction between financing and production decisions influences the stationary distribution of firms and their survival probabilities. The analysis demonstrates that the equilibrium output price has an important feedback effect. This effect has a number of testable implications. For example, high growth industries have relatively lower leverage and turnover rates.     

Corporate Governance and Capital Structure Dynamics

We develop a dynamic tradeoff model to examine the importance of manager–shareholder conflicts in capital structure choice. In the model, firms face taxation, refinancing costs, and liquidation costs. Managers own a fraction of the firms’ equity, capture part of the free cash flow to equity as private benefits, and have control over financing decisions. Using data on leverage choices and the model's predictions for different statistical moments of leverage, we find that agency costs of 1.5% of equity value on average are sufficient to resolve the low‐leverage puzzle and to explain the dynamics of leverage ratios. Our estimates also reveal that agency costs vary significantly across firms and correlate with commonly used proxies for corporate governance.     

Debt Dynamics

We develop a dynamic trade‐off model with endogenous choice of leverage, distributions, and real investment in the presence of a graduated corporate income tax, individual taxes on interest and corporate distributions, financial distress costs, and equity flotation costs. We explain several empirical findings inconsistent with the static trade‐off theory. We show there is no target leverage ratio, firms can be savers or heavily levered, leverage is path dependent, leverage is decreasing in lagged liquidity, and leverage varies negatively with an external finance weighted average Q. Using estimates of structural parameters, we find that simulated model moments match data moments.     

Corporate Debt Value,Bond Covenants,and Optimal Capital Structure

This article examines corporate debt values and capital structure in a unified analytical framework. It derives closed-form results for the value of long-term risky debt and yield spreads, and for optimal capital structure, when firm asset value follows a diffusion process with constant volatility. Debt values and optimal leverage are explicitly linked to firm risk, taxes, bankruptcy costs, risk-free interest rates, payout rates, and bond covenants. The results elucidate the different behavior of junk bonds versus investment-grade bonds, and aspects of asset substitution, debt repurchase, and debt renegotiation.     

‘Hot’ Debt Markets and Capital Structure

This paper examines the motives of debt issuance during hot‐debt market periods and its impact on capital structure over the period 1970–2006. We find that perceived capital market conditions as favourable, an indication of market timing, and adverse selection costs of equity (i.e., information asymmetry) are important frictions that lead certain firms to issue more debt in hot‐ than cold‐debt market periods. Using alternative hot‐debt market issuance measures and controlling for other effects, such as structural shifts in the debt market, industry, book‐to‐market, price‐to‐earnings, size, tax rates, debt market conditions and adjustment costs based on debt credit ratings, we find that firms with high adverse selection costs issue substantially more (less) debt when market conditions are perceived as hot (cold). Moreover, the results indicate that there is a persistent hot‐debt market effect on the capital structure of debt issuers; hot‐debt market issuing firms do not actively rebalance their leverage to stay within an optimal capital structure range.     

Securityholder Taxes, Corporate Capital Structures and the Priority Structure of Debt

This paper shows that the firm has an incentive to issue multiple classes of debt that are differentiated by seniority to enhance securityholder tax-timing option values. The analysis establishes that there is at least one mix of senior and junior debt that maximizes the tax option gain from having multiple priority classes of debt. An analytic example provides specifications for the optimal amount of leverage and the optimal mix of senior and junior debt. Relative to the case of only one class of debt, a multiple debt priority structure increases the optimal amount of corporate leverage.     

Capital Structure Dynamics in the UK and Continental Europe

Abstract

This paper investigates empirically the effects of institutions and market characteristics on corporate capital structure dynamics. Based on the fact that firms may temporarily deviate from their optimal capital structure due to the existence of adjustment costs, a partial adjustment model is used that links these transaction costs to country-specific characteristics such as the development of the financial markets, legal system, and macroeconomic environment. The sample comprises data from 873 firms in France, Germany, Italy and the UK over the period from 1982 to 2002. The results support the hypotheses that more developed financial markets, greater efficiency of the legal system and better protection of shareholders all have a positive effect on the speed at which firms adjust their capital structure towards the target. Similarly, higher economic growth and a higher inflation rate positively affect the speed of adjustment to the optimal capital structure as well.     

Debt Reclassification and Capital Market Consequences

Abstract:  We provide initial evidence on the economic consequences of a relatively large, fully disclosed, and apparently purposeful reporting decision: the balance sheet classification of short-term obligations as long-term debt in accordance with Statement of Financial Accounting Standard No. 6 . We examine a sample of 1,684 American firm-year observations between the years 1989 and 2000 to determine whether reclassification is associated with debt-ratings and equity values. We find that reclassification increases the likelihood of a subsequent debt-rating downgrade. We also find that market value decreases with increases in the amount reclassified, and that equity value is higher after firms cease reclassifying short-term obligations as long-term debt, compared with other firm-years in the sample. Thus, changes in debt classification are empirically linked in predictable directions to subsequent changes in debt ratings and stock values. Taken together, our results show that debt classification is an important publicly-available indicator that may be useful to capital market participants. We discuss several research extensions including the implications of our findings to European companies that convert to IAS in 2005.     

Tax-Exempt Debt and the Capital Structure of Nonprofit Organizations: An Application to Hospitals

The availability of tax-exempt financing provides nonprofit (NP) organizations with their own tax-based incentives to issue debt. In this article, we develop a theoretical model in which NPs gain an indirect arbitrage from tax-exempt debt issuance, constrained by: 1) the requirement that fixed investment exceed tax-exempt debt flows (the project financing constraint), and 2) the constraint against share issuance. These constraints cause them to impute tax benefits to projects that afford access to the tax-exempt bond market. Empirical tests indicate that NP hospitals behave as if they have target levels of tax-exempt debt. Debt targeting is constrained by the availability of capital projects, while excess debt capacity stimulates investment.     

CEO Inside Debt Incentives and Corporate Tax Sheltering

This paper examines the relation between CEO inside debt holdings (pension benefits and deferred compensation) and corporate tax sheltering. Because inside debt holdings are generally unsecured and unfunded liabilities of the firm, CEOs are exposed to risk similar to that faced by outside creditors. As such, theory (Jensen and Meckling [1976]) suggests that inside debt holdings negatively impact CEO risk‐appetite. To the extent that corporate tax shelters are likely to result in high cash flow volatility in the future, we expect that inside debt holdings will curb CEOs from engaging in tax shelter transactions. Consistent with the prediction, we document a negative association between CEO inside debt holdings and tax sheltering. Additional analyses suggest that the effect of inside debt on tax sheltering is more (less) pronounced in the presence of high default risk and liquidity threats (cash‐out options in pension packages). Overall, our results highlight the importance of investigating the implication of CEO debt‐like compensation for corporate tax policies.     

Capital Structure and Financial Risk: Evidence from Foreign Debt Use in East Asia

Using a data set of East Asian nonfinancial companies, we examine a firm's choice between local, foreign, and synthetic local currency (hedged foreign currency) debt. We find evidence of unique as well as common factors that determine each debt type's use, indicating the importance of examining debt at a disaggregated level. We exploit the Asian financial crisis as a natural experiment to investigate the role of debt type in firm performance. Surprisingly, we find that the use of synthetic local currency debt is associated with the biggest drop in market value, possibly due to currency derivative market illiquidity during the crisis.