This article investigates how “systematic” adjustment costs proxied by market imperfections, and macroeconomic conditions affect capital structure dynamics in a cross-country setting. We document substantial variations in firms' capital structure adjustments across countries and,...

We analyze the mutual relations among firms' capital structure, ownership structure and valuation. Through the estimation of a system of simultaneous equations for a sample of 1,130 firms from 16 countries from both the common law and the civil law environments, our results confirm the...

We show that rating agencies have become more conservative in assigning credit ratings to corporations over the period 1985 to 2009. Holding firm characteristics constant, average ratings have dropped by three notches (e.g., from A to BBB ) over time. Consistent with the view that this change...