Existing theories of a firm’s optimal capital structure seem to fail in explaining why many healthy and profitable firms rely heavily on equity financing, even though benefits associated with debt (like tax shields) appear to be high and the bankruptcy risk low. This holds in particular for...

This article studies the characteristics of a S-based tax system under default risk. In particular we show that its neutrality properties depend on whether debt is protected or unprotected. In the former case, this system is neutral. In the latter case, where default timing is optimally chosen...

Tax neutrality towards alternative financing instruments for corporate investment is a ubiquitous demand in the political debate. At the same time, the literature is surprisingly silent about the magnitude of possible efficiency costs of a departure from tax neutrality. Againstthis background,...

The paper aims at empirically investigating the relationship between regulation and the capital structure of the regulated firm, A key aspect of the referred relationship pertains a leverage effect according to which debt could be increased as a response to previous physical capital investment...

We offer a unified framework to analyze the determination of employment, employee effort, wages, profit-sharing and capital structure when firms face stochastic revenue shocks. We apply a generalized Nash bargaining solution, which extends the wage bargaining literature by incorporating...

The evidence shows that in most countries the present value of depreciation allowances is less than 100% of the cost of capital. In this article we use a real-option model with debt financing, and show that less favorable depreciation allowances are offset by tax benefits arising from debt...