We reconcile two seemingly contrasting empirical facts, active capital structure rebalancing and slow adjustments towards target leverage, through the lens of a standard dynamic capital structure model. In the model, firms adjust leverage towards a dynamic target, which is firm specific and...

I consider the role of firm transparency in shaping its capital structure. In a costly-state-verification model, the optimal capital structure can be implemented by a mixture of debt and outside equity. Consistent with empirical evidence, leverage decreases with both past and expected...

This paper addresses two issues encountered in the empirical financial distress literature: a-theoretical treatment of leverage and product-market competition as predictors of financial distress hazard; and lack of attention to frailty as a potential source of bias in reported estimates. We...

We model the expansion decision of a levered firm. Straight debt distorts both timing and scaling: the firm invests less and later than its all-equity financed counterpart. The inclusion of performance sensitivity in the debt contract mitigates such distortions. Moreover, performance sensitivity...

We examine how CEO's inside-debt based compensation incentives (pension benefits and other deferred compensation) influence firm's debt maturity structure. We examine this relationship in the context of the hypothesis that CEO's inside-debt based incentives exposes managers to similar kind of...

This paper investigates the determinants of liability maturity choice in transition markets. We formulate a model of firm value maximization that describes managers' choice of optimal debt structure. The theoretical predictions are tested using a unique panel of 4,300 Ukrainian firms during the...

Deleveraging, whether via reductions in debt or increases in assets, is costly due to value transfers from shareholders to creditors. It is especially costly in the presence of long-term debt and when the need to deleverage is high. This paper, first, provides empirical evidence consistent with...

This paper provides a quantitative review of the empirical literature on the tax impact on corporate debt financing. Synthesizing the evidence from 46 previous studies, we find that this impact is substantial. In particular, the tax rate proxy determines the outcome of primary analyses. Measures...

In dynamic capital structure models with an investor break-even condition, the firm's Bellman equation may not generate a contraction mapping, so the standard existence and uniqueness conditions do not apply. First, we provide an example showing the problem in a classical trade-off model. The...

We study the relation between product market competition and convertible debt financing. Competitive threats motivate firms to use convertible debt because the possibility of future conversion enhances financial flexibility. Consistent with this intuition, we find that the intensity of...