企业研发与资本结构研究外文文献翻译

金融体制、融资约束与投资——来自OECD的实证分析R．SemenovDepartment of Economics，University of Nijmegen，Nijmegen（荷兰内梅亨大学，经济学院）这篇论文考查了OECD的11个国家中现金流量对企业投资的影响.我们发现不同国家之间投资对企业内部可获取资金的敏感性具有显著差异,并且银企之间具有明显的紧密关系的国家的敏感性比银企之间具有公平关系的国家的低.同时，我们发现融资约束与整体金融发展指标不存在关系.我们的结论与资本市场信息和激励问题对企业投资具有重要作用这种观点一致，并且紧密的银企关系会减少这些问题从而增加企业获取外部融资的渠道。

一、引言各个国家的企业在显著不同的金融体制下运行。

金融发展水平的差别(例如，相对GDP的信用额度和相对GDP的相应股票市场的资本化程度），在所有者和管理者关系、企业和债权人的模式中，企业控制的市场活动水平可以很好地被记录.在完美资本市场,对于具有正的净现值投资机会的企业将一直获得资金。

然而，经济理论表明市场摩擦，诸如信息不对称和激励问题会使获得外部资本更加昂贵，并且具有盈利投资机会的企业不一定能够获取所需资本.这表明融资要素，例如内部产生资金数量、新债务和权益的可得性，共同决定了企业的投资决策.现今已经有大量考查外部资金可得性对投资决策的影响的实证资料（可参考，例如Fazzari（1998）、 Hoshi(1991)、 Chapman（1996）、Samuel(1998））.大多数研究结果表明金融变量例如现金流量有助于解释企业的投资水平。

这项研究结果解释表明企业投资受限于外部资金的可得性。

很多模型强调运行正常的金融中介和金融市场有助于改善信息不对称和交易成本，减缓不对称问题,从而促使储蓄资金投着长期和高回报的项目,并且提高资源的有效配置（参看Levine（1997)的评论文章）。

因而我们预期用于更加发达的金融体制的国家的企业将更容易获得外部融资.几位学者已经指出建立企业和金融中介机构可进一步缓解金融市场摩擦。

资本结构外文文献翻译外文资料翻译—英文原文How Important is Financial Risk?IntroductionThe financial crisis of 2008 has brought significant attention tothe effects of financial leverage. There is no doubt that the highlevels of debt financing by financial institutions and households significantly contributed to the crisis. Indeed, evidence indicates that excessive leverage orchestrated by major global banks (e.g., through the mortgage lending and collateralized debt obligations) and the so-called “shadowbanking system” may be the underlying cause of the recent economic and financialdislocation. Less obvious is the role of financial leverage among nonfinancial firms. To date, problems in the U.S. non-financial sector have been minor compared to the distress in the financial sector despite the seizing of capital markets during the crisis. For example, non-financial bankruptcies have been limited given that the economic decline is the largest since the great depression of the 1930s. In fact, bankruptcy filings of non-financial firms have occurred mostly in U.S. industries (e.g., automotive manufacturing, newspapers, and real estate) that faced fundamental economic pressures prior to the financial crisis.This surprising fact begs the question, “How important is financialrisk for non-financial firms?” At the heart of this issue is the uncertainty about the determinants of total firm risk as well as components of firm risk.StudyRecent academic research in both asset pricing and corporate finance has rekindled an interest in analyzing equity price risk. A current strand of the asset pricing literature examines the finding of Campbell et al. (2001) that firm-specific (idiosyncratic) risk has tended to increase over the last 40 years. Other work suggests that idiosyncratic risk may be a priced risk factor (see Goyal and Santa-Clara, 2003, among others). Also related to these studies is work by Pástor and Veronesi (2003) showing how investor uncertainty about firm profitability is an important determinant of idiosyncratic risk and firm value. Other research has examined the role of equity volatility in bond pricing (e.g., Dichev, 1998, Campbell, Hilscher, and Szilagyi, 2008).However, much of the empirical work examining equity price risktakes the risk of assets as given or tries to explain the trend in idiosyncratic risk. In contrast, this外文资料翻译—英文原文paper takes a different tack in the investigation of equity price risk. First, we seek to understand the determinants of equity price risk at the firm level by considering total risk as the product of risks inherent in the firms operations (i.e., economic or business risks) andrisks associated with financing the firms operations (i.e., financial risks). Second, we attempt to assess the relative importance of economic and financial risks and the implications for financial policy.Early research by Modigliani and Miller (1958) suggests thatfinancial policy may be largely irrelevant for firm value because investors can replicate many financial decisions by the firm at a low cost (i.e., via homemade leverage) and well-functioningcapital markets should be able to distinguish between financial and economic distress. Nonetheless, financial policies, such as adding debt to the capital structure, can magnify the risk of equity. In contrast, recent research on corporate risk management suggests that firms mayalso be able to reduce risks and increase value with financial policies such as hedging with financial derivatives. However, this research is often motivated by substantial deadweight costs associated withfinancial distress or other market imperfections associated withfinancial leverage. Empirical research provides conflicting accounts of how costly financial distress can be for a typical publicly traded firm.We attempt to directly address the roles of economic and financialrisk by examining determinants of total firm risk. In our analysis we utilize a large sample of non-financial firms in the United States. Our goal of identifying the most important determinants of equity price risk (volatility) relies on viewing financial policy as transforming asset volatility into equity volatility via financial leverage. Thus, throughout the paper, we consider financial leverage as the wedgebetween asset volatility and equity volatility. For example, in a static setting, debt provides financial leverage that magnifies operating cash flow volatility. Because financial policy is determined by owners (and managers), we are careful to examine the effects of firms? asset and operating characteristics on financial policy. Specifically, we examine a variety of characteristics suggested by previous research and, as clearly as possible, distinguish between those associated with the operations of the company (i.e. factors determining economic risk) and those associated with financing the firm (i.e. factors determining financial risk). We then allow economic risk to be a determinant of financial policy in the structural framework of Leland and Toft (1996), or alternatively,外文资料翻译—英文原文in a reduced form model of financial leverage. An advantage of the structural model approach is that we are able to account for both the possibility of financial and operating implications of some factors (e.g., dividends), as well as the endogenous nature of the bankruptcy decision and financial policy in general.Our proxy for firm risk is the volatility of common stock returns derived from calculating the standard deviation of daily equity returns. Our proxies for economic risk are designed to capture the essential characteristics of the firms? operations andassets that determine the cash flow generating process for the firm. For example, firm size and age provide measures of line of- businessmaturity; tangible assets (plant, property, and equipment) serve as ap roxy for the …hardness? of a firm?s assets;capital expenditures measure capital intensity as well as growth potential. Operating profitability and operating profit volatility serve as measures of the timeliness and riskiness of cash flows. To understand how financial factors affect firm risk, we examine total debt, debt maturity, dividend payouts, and holdings of cash and short-term investments.The primary result of our analysis is surprising: factorsdetermining economic risk for a typical company explain the vastmajority of the variation in equity volatility.Correspondingly, measures of implied financial leverage are much lower than observed debt ratios. Specifically, in our sample covering 1964-2008 average actual net financial (market) leverage is about 1.50 compared to our estimates of between 1.03 and 1.11 (depending on model specification and estimation technique). This suggests that firms may undertake other financial policies to manage financial risk and thus lower effective leverage to nearly negligible levels. These policies might include dynamically adjusting financial variables such as debt levels, debt maturity, or cash holdings (see, for example, Acharya, Almeida, and Campello, 2007). In addition, many firms also utilize explicit financial risk management techniques such as the use of financial derivatives, contractual arrangements with investors (e.g. lines of credit, call provisions in debt contracts, or contingencies insupplier contracts), special purpose vehicles (SPVs), or other alternative risk transfer techniques.The effects of our economic risk factors on equity volatility are generally highly statistically significant, with predicted signs. In addition, the magnitudes of the effects are substantial. We find that volatility of equity decreases with the size and age of the firm. Thisis intuitive since large and mature firms typically have more stable lines of英文原文外文资料翻译—business, which should be reflected in the volatility of equity returns. Equity volatility tends to decrease with capital expenditures though the effect is weak. Consistent with the predictions of Pástor and Veronesi (2003), we find that firms with higher profitability and lower profit volatility have lower equity volatility. This suggests that companies with higher and more stable operating cash flows are less likely to go bankrupt, and therefore are potentially less risky. Among economic risk variables, the effects of firm size, profit volatility, and dividend policy on equity volatility stand out. Unlike some previous studies, our careful treatment of the endogeneity of financial policy confirms that leverage increases total firm risk. Otherwise, financial risk factors are not reliably related to total risk.Given the large literature on financial policy, it is no surprise that financial variables are,at least in part, determined by the economic risks firms take. However, some of the specific findings areunexpected. For example, in a simple model of capital structure, dividend payouts should increase financial leverage since they represent an outflow of cash from the firm (i.e., increase net debt). We find that dividends are associated with lower risk. This suggests that paying dividends is not as much a product of financial policy as a characteristic of a firm?s operations (e.g., a maturecompany with limited growth opportunities). We also estimate how sensitivities to different risk factors have changed over time. Our results indicate that most relations are fairly stable. One exception is firm age which prior to 1983 tends to be positively related to risk and has since been consistently negatively related to risk. This is related to findings by Brown and Kapadia (2007) that recent trends in idiosyncratic risk are related to stock listings by younger and riskier firms.Perhaps the most interesting result from our analysis is that our measures of implied financial leverage have declined over the last 30 years at the same time that measures of equity price risk (such as idiosyncratic risk) appear to have been increasing. In fact, measures of implied financial leverage from our structural model settle near 1.0 (i.e., no leverage) by the end of our sample. There are several possible reasons for this. First, total debt ratios for non-financial firms have declined steadily over the last 30 years, so our measure of implied leverage should also decline. Second, firms have significantly increased cash holdings, so measures of net debt (debtminus cash and short-term investments) have also declined. Third, the composition of publicly traded firms has changed with more risky (especially technology-oriented)英文原文外文资料翻译—firms becoming publicly listed. These firms tend to have less debtin their capital structure. Fourth, as mentioned above, firms can undertake a variety of financial risk management activities. To the extent that these activities have increased over the last few decades, firms will have become less exposed to financial risk factors.We conduct some additional tests to provide a reality check of our results. First, we repeat our analysis with a reduced form model that imposes minimum structural rigidity on our estimation and find very similar results. This indicates that our results are unlikely to be driven by model misspecification. We also compare our results with trends in aggregate debt levels for all U.S. non-financial firms andfind evidence consistent with our conclusions. Finally, we look at characteristics of publicly traded non-financial firms that file for bankruptcy around the last three recessions and find evidence suggesting that these firms are increasingly being affected by economic distress as opposed to financial distress.ConclusionIn short, our results suggest that, as a practical matter, residual financial risk is now relatively unimportant for the typical U.S. firm. This raises questions about the level of expected financial distresscosts since the probability of financial distress is likely to be lower than commonly thought for most companies. For example, our results suggest that estimates of the level of systematic risk in bond pricing may be biased if they do not take into account the trend in implied financial leverage (e.g., Dichev, 1998). Our results also bring into question the appropriateness of financial models used to estimatedefault probabilities, since financial policies that may be difficult to observe appear to significantly reduce risk. Lastly, our results imply that the fundamental risks born by shareholders are primarily related to underlying economic risks which should lead to a relatively efficient allocation of capital.Some readers may be tempted to interpret our results as indicating that financial risk does not matter. This is not the proper interpretation. Instead, our results suggest that firms are able to manage financial risk so that the resulting exposure to shareholders is low compared to economic risks. Of course, financial risk is important to firms that choose to take on such risks either through high debt levels or a lack of risk management. In contrast, our study suggeststhat the typical non-financial firm chooses not to take these risks. In short, gross financial risk may be important, but firms can manage it. This contrasts with fundamental economic and business risks that 外文资料翻译—英文原文are more difficult (or undesirable) to hedge because they represent the mechanism by which the firm earns economic profits.References[1]Shyam,Sunder.Theory Accounting and Control[J].An Innternational Theory on PublishingComPany.2005[2]Ogryezak,W,Ruszeznski,A. Rom Stomchastic Dominance to Mean-Risk Models:Semide-Viations as Risk Measures[J].European Journal of Operational Research.[3] Borowski, D.M., and P.J. Elmer. An Expert System Approach to Financial Analysis: the Case of S&L Bankruptcy [J].Financial Management, Autumn.2004;[4] Casey, C.and N. Bartczak. Using Operating Cash Flow Data to Predict Financial Distress: Some Extensions[J]. Journal of Accounting Research,Spring.2005;[5] John M.Mulvey,HafizeGErkan.Applying CVaR for decentralized risk management of financialcompanies[J].Journal of Banking&Finanee.2006;[6] Altman. Credit Rating:Methodologies,Rationale and DefaultRisk[M](RiskBooks,London.译文:财务风险的重要性引言2008年的金融危机对金融杠杆的作用产生重大影响。

Theory of capital structure theory, including net income, net operating income theory, MM theory, agency theory and the theory level of funding. (A) of the net theory The theory that the use of debt can reduce their overall cost of capital. As the cost of debt is generally lower, so the higher the debt level, consolidated cost of capital lower, the greater enterprise value. When the debt ratio to 100%, the enterprise value will be maximized. (B) Net operating income theory The theory that capital structure has nothing to do with the value of the business, deciding the level of the key elements of the value of the enterprise's net operating income. Although the company increased lower-cost debt capital, but also increase the risk of the enterprise, resulting in increased cost of equity capital, the company integrated the cost of capital remains unchanged. Regardless of how the company's financial leverage, the overall cost of capital constant, the value of corporate capital structure will not, therefore there is no optimal capital structure. (C) MM MM theory theory is that in the absence of corporate and personal income tax situation, the value of any enterprise, regardless of whether the liabilities are equal to operating profit divided by the applicable rate of return to their risk level. Risk of the same enterprise, the value of liabilities and whether the extent of the liabilities from the impact; but in considering the case of income tax, tax shelters because of the interests of corporate value will increase with the extent of the liabilities increase, shareholders will receive more benefits . As a result, more debt, the enterprise value will be greater. (D) agency theory agency theory that capital structure will affect the level of work managers and other behavior choices, which affect future cash income and market value. The theory that creditors have a strong incentive funding, and debt as a security mechanism. This mechanism can make managers more work, less personal enjoyment, and make better investment decisions, thereby reducing the separation of ownership and agency costs incurred; However, debt financing could lead to another agency costs, which companies to accept the creditors monitoring costs incurred. Enterprise ownership structure balanced by equity and debt agency costs balance between agency costs to the decision. (E) funding level of theory theory that funding levels: (1) the cost of external financing, including management and underwriting not only cost, but also generated by asymmetric information, "under-investment effect" caused by the cost. (2) debt financing than equity financing. The interests of the corporate income tax saving, debt financing can increase the value of the business, that is, the more debt, increase corporate value more, this is the first effect of debt; however, the cost of the financial crisis and the present value of expected agency costs are value will lead to a decline in enterprise value, namely, the more debt, the greater the decrease in corporate value, which is the second effect of debt. Since these two effects offset, corporate liability should be moderate. (3) The existence of asymmetric information, companies need to retain certain liabilities for profitable investment opportunities in the capacity comes to issue bonds, to avoid the high cost of issuing new shares. View from the mature stock market, corporate pecking order pattern of financing is internal financing first, followed by loans, issue bonds, convertible bonds, and finally the issue of new shares financing. However, the 80 emerging stock markets of the 20th century with obvious preference for equity financing. 资本结构的影响因素：Although the modern capital structure theory has become a more complete theoretical system, but it is only theoretically analyzed, and the emphasis on the theory of capitalstructure are often a factor, and the corporate face of the competitive environment and production environment is complex, factors that affect the capital structure is complex, requiring from the macro, meso and micro-analysis of all aspects.(A) macro-economic factorsMacroeconomic factors is the development of a country's overall economic status and income level, the macroeconomic impact of capital structure factors, including economic development cycle, the level of economic development, capital market conditions and inflation. If a country's economic development well in the economic cycle in a stage of recovery or prosperity, strong demand and supply companies, in a good production and business environment, companies right. Strong demand for funds, will indirectly affect the capital structure. But when the stage of a country's economy in recession, most companies in financial difficulties, in order to survive, companies will generally try to reduce the size of external debt in order to avoid liquidity shortages due to bankruptcy.Perfect capital markets, financing channels are smooth, have been identified related to the business capital of organizations can be achieved as planned. Capital markets tend to lag behind allowing companies to be forced to change a previously set to discuss the capital structure, which will lead to the increase in the cost of corporate capital, corporate capital structure in determining the best capital market factors may be considered small, objectively impeded the Superior the realization of capital structure. (B) in view of economic factorsThe so-called meso-economic factors, which mainly refers to the industry factors, domestic and foreign large number of theoretical and empirical studies have shown that the same industries and enterprises consistent with the capital structure, capital structure of different industries will there is a big difference. The same industry in which the development cycle, risks, capital requirements and other parties on a more consistent side, prisoners of this, in the equity capital and debt capital is often the choice of BU consistency, a similar bias in the debt ratio.Companies in determining the capital structure, pay attention to industry factors, the risk profile of its industry, capital requirements and other conditions, compare levels of the industry average debt ratio, integrated their own factors, reasonably determine the capital structure.(C) of the micro-economic factors1, the enterprise scale. Firm size on capital structure can be analyzed from two aspects of supply and demand. On the demand side, companies large and the demand for capital, the more, and therefore greater need for diversified financing channels, as in the stock market when funding is limited, demand will increase to debt, debt leverage to seek greater effect. On the supply side, the larger corporate regulation membrane ability to take risks that companies, banks and other creditors to be more willing to provide financing to businesses, enterprises can obtain a lower cost debt capital, so debt is higher. In summary, the corporate debt ratio and firm size is often positively correlated.2, the company's profitability and growth. High debt ratio of enterprises need sufficient liquidity to pay as interest and debt guarantees, therefore, in general, only with higher profitability and growth of the company can maintain a higher debt ratio. On the other hand, high profitability and growth of enterprises do not want to because the equityfinancing, equity financing of the old with the dilution of the interests of shareholders, companies continue to grow and need a lot of financial support, the financing of enterprises will be biased in favor of debt financing. Therefore, the debt ratio and corporate profitability and growth are positively correlated.3, film companies can regulate mortgage assets. Modern enterprises generally use debt financing by way of security, so companies only have a bite larger mortgage assets, to finance by way of debt, for the machinery manufacturing, real estate and other fixed assets, the larger the enterprise, its with more assets can be secured, a greater supply of debt finance and financing costs are lower, companies would be biased in favor of higher debt capital structure.In summary, in terms of capital structure theory and practical analysis of the factors, I believe that the optimal capital structure of enterprises need integrated various factors, both theoretical models to be applied, and must be based on the actual situation of domestic capital markets, real case, alternative financing channels in the actual and reasonable identified in the capital structure to maximize the reduction in the cost of corporate finance, financial needs of corporations, while maximizing the level of corporate earnings. Links in the paper for download中文资本结构理论的理论，包括纯收入，净经营收入理论，MM理论，代理理论和基金理论水平。

文献信息：文献标题：Capital Structure Theory: An Overview（资本结构理论综述）国外作者：DK Yapa Abeywardhana文献出处：《Accounting and Finance Research》,2017,6(1):133-138 字数统计：英文2840单词，15223字符；中文5026汉字外文文献：Capital Structure Theory: An Overview Abstract Capital structure is still a puzzle among finance scholars. Purpose of this study is to review various capital structure theories that have been proposed in the finance literature to provide clarification for the firms’ capital structure decision. Starting from the capital structure irrelevance theory of Modigliani and Miller (1958) this review examine the several theories that have been put forward to explain the capital structure.Three major theories emerged over the years following the assumption of the perfect capital market of capital structure irrelevance model. Trade off theory assumes that firms have one optimal debt ratio and firm trade off the benefit and cost of debt and equity financing. Pecking order theory (Myers, 1984, Myers and Majluf, 1984) assumes that firms follow a financing hierarchy whereby minimize the problem of information asymmetry. But neither of these two theories provide a complete description why some firms prefer debt and others prefer equity finance under different circumstances.Another theory of capital structure has introduced recently by, Baker and Wurgler (2002), market timing theory, which explains the current capital structure as the cumulative outcome of past attempts to time the equity market. Market timing issuing behaviour has been well established empirically by others already, but Baker and Wurgler (2002) show that the influence of market timing on capital structure is regular and continuous. So the predictions of these theories sometimes acted in acontradictory manner and Myers (1984) 32 ye ars old question “How do firms choose their capital structure?” still remains.Keywords: Capital structure, Pecking order theory, Trade off theory, Market Timing Theory1.IntroductionThe second financing choice faced by the firm, Capital Structure is still a puzzle in finance. Capital structure or financial leverage decision should be examined concerning how debt and equity mix in the firm’s capital structure influence its market value. Debt to equity mix of the firm can have important implications for the value of the firm and cost of capital. In maximizing shareholders wealth firm use more debt capital in the capital structure as the interest paid is a tax deductible and lowers the debt’s effective cost. Further equity holders do not have to share their profit with debt holders as the debt holders get a fixed return. However, the higher the debt capital, riskier the firm, hence the higher its cost of capital. Therefore it is important to identify the important elements of capital structure, precise measure of these elements and the best capital structure for a particular firm at a particular time.Researchers and practitioners explain conflicting theories on capital structure. Durand (1952) states using the Net Income (NI) approach that firm can decrease its cost capital and consequently increase the value of the firm through debt financing. In contrast, Modigliani and Miller (1958) claims in their seminal paper capital structure irrelevance that firm’s value is independent of its debt to equity ratio whic h is known as Net Operating Income (NOI) approach. They argue that perfect capital market without taxes and transaction cost the firm value remain constant to the changes in the capital structure. According to Pandey (2007) the traditional approach has emerged a compromise to the extreme position taken by the NI approach. Traditional approach does not assume constant cost of equity change in debt to equity ratio and continuously declining Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC). Further this approach assume the concept of optimal capital structure and thereby very clearly implies that WACC decreases only for a certain level of financial leverage andreaching the minimum level. Further increase in financial leverage would increase the WACC.During the past five decades various theories have been developed and to explain the capital structure and value of the firm and main factors determining capital structure. Simultaneously enormous number of empirical studies have also tried to explain these theories and their effectiveness.2.Capital Structure Theories2.1.Capital Structure Irrelevance Theory of Modigliani and MillerCapital structure irrelevance theory of Modigliani and Miller (1958) is considered as the starting point of modern theory of capital structure. Based on assumptions related to the behavior of investors and capital market MM illustrates that firm value is unaffected by the capital structure of the firm. Securities are traded in perfect capital market, all relevant information are available for insiders and outsiders to take the decision (no asymmetry of information), that is transaction cost, bankruptcy cost and taxation do not exist. Borrowing and lending is possiblefor firms andindividual investors at the same interest rate which permits for homemade leverage, firms operatingin a similar risk classes and have similar operating leverage, interest payable on debt do not save any taxes and firms follow 100% dividend payout. Under these assumptions MM theory proved that there is no optimal debt to equity ratio and capital structure is irrelevant for the shareholders wealth. This preposition presented by MM (1958) in their seminal paper and argue that value of levered firm is same as the value of unlevered firm. Therefore they propose that managers should not concern the capital structure and they can freely select the composition of debt to equity. Important contributions to the MM approach include Hirshleifer (1966) and Stiglitz (1969). Further in their preposition II they claim that increase in leverage increase the risk of the firm and as a result the cost of equity increases. But WACC of the firm remain constant as cost of debt compensate with higher cost of equity.Capital structure irrelevance theory was theoretically very sound but was based on unrealistic set of assumptions. Therefore this theory led to a plenty of research oncapital structure. Even though their theory was valid theoretically, world without taxes were not valid in reality. In order to make it more accurate Modigliani and Miller (1963) incorporated the effect of tax on cost of capital and firm value. In the presence of corporate taxes, the firm value increase with the leverage due to the tax shield. Interest on debt capital is an acceptable deduction from the firm’s income and thu s decreases the net tax payment of the firm. This would result in an added benefit of using debtcapital through lowering the capital cost of the firm. Drawbacks in MM theory stimulated series of research devoted on proving irrelevance as theoretical and empirical matter.So may other theories that contribute to capital structure theorem have developed based on the MM theorem and it is much hard to validate any of them. Even though there are weaknesses in MM theorem it cannot be completely ignored or excluded.2.2.Trade off TheoryOne of the basic theory that have dominated the capital structure theory which recommends that optimal level of the debt is where the marginal benefit of debt finance is equal to its marginal cost. Firm can achieve an optimal capital structure through adjusting the debt and equity level thereby balancing the tax shield and financial distress cost. There is no consensus among researchers on what consist the benefit and costs. Eliminating the constraints of the capital structure irrelevance proposition of MM Myers (1984) use the trade of theory as a theoretical foundation to explain the “Capital Structure Puzzle”. Myers (1977) suggest that the use of debt up to a certain level offset the cost of financial distress and interest tax shield. According to Fama and French (2002) the optimal capital structure can be identified through the benefits of debt tax deductibility of interest and cost of bankruptcy and agency cost.Arnold (2008) explains how is the increase in debt capital in the capital structure effect the value of the firm in the Figure 1. As debt capital increase WACC of the firm declines until the firm reaches the optimal gearing level and cost of financial distress increases along with the debt level. This is confirmed by Miller (1988) that the optimal debt to equity ratio shows the highest possible tax shield that the company can enjoy. Further consistent with Modigliani and Miller (1963), Miller (1988)confirmed the fact that firms increase the risk of bankruptcy due to the debt capital in their capital structure. In the trade off theory cost of debt are linked with direct as well as indirect cost of bankruptcy. Bradley et. al., (1984) explained that cost of bankruptcy include legal and administrative cost, other indirect cost resulting from loosing of customers and trust between staff and suppliers due to the uncertainties.Figure 1Apart from the bankruptcy cost, agency cost of Jenson and Meckling (1976) is also considered in the trade off model. Jenson and Meckling (1976) explains that separation of ownership and control is the reason to rise the agency cost. According to Arnold (2008) agency costs are direct and indirect costs result from principals and agents act in their best interest and, failure to make agents to act this way.Jenson (1986) states that debt can reduce the agency cost and argue that higher the debt capital grater the commitment to pay out more cash. Though, Frank and Goyal (2008) contend that it is not been totally explained the impact of agency conflicts on capital structure. Harris and Raviv (1990) suggest that debt capital in the capital structure produce valuable information in monitoring the agency behavior andfor self-interest reasons managers are reluctant to liquidate the firm or provide such information which could lead to bankruptcy. Debt holders also concerned only on their benefit and would prefer firms to undertake safe investments nut do not bother about the profitability of those investments. This further explains Fama and French (2002) that due to the cost of debt agency conflicts arise between shareholders and bondholders.Brounen et. al., (2005) states that the presence of optimal capital structure or target capital structure increase the shareholder wealth. Further this study explains that even the value maximizing firm use debt capital to full capacity they face low probability of going bankrupt. Hovakimian et. al. (2004) claims that high profitability of gearing proposes that the firms’ tax shield higher and lower the possibility of bankruptcy. This is consistent with the key prediction of the trade-off model that there is a positive correlation between profitability and gearing. But none ofthese theoretical and empirical studies fully substitute the traditional version and therefore researchers still test the trade-off theory based on the original assumptions. In the literature contradictory evidence can be found in favor and against the trade-off model and optimal capital structure. Titman and Wessels (1988) found that non-debt tax shield and use of debt capital in the capital structure is positively correlated. Contradictory to this results. Consistent with Modigliani and Miller (1963) Mackie-Mason (1990) found that firms which incur a tax loss are rarely issue debt capital. Gearing level of the firms are steady even the tax rates vary to great extent (Wright, 2004). Contrary to this Graham and Harvey (2001) revealed that capital structure choice depend on tax rates.Optimal capital structure choice of the firm would be to issue debt capital and/or equity capital. Trade off theory postulate that all firms have an optimal debt ratio at which the tax shield equal the financial distress cost. This theory eliminate the impact of information asymmetry and incorporating the different information on conflicts between insiders and outsiders Pecking Order Theory proposed.2.3.Pecking Order TheoryAssuming perfect capital market as proposed by MM (1958), Myers and Majluf(1984) propose pecking order theory following the findings of Donaldson (1961) which found that management prefer internally generated funds rather using external funds. Pecking order theory suggest that firm prefer internal financing over debt capital and explains that firms utilize internal funds first then issue debt and finally as the last resort issue equity capital. Al-Tally (2014) confirmed the same that firms prefer to finance new investments with internally generated funds first and then with debt capital and as the last resort they would go for equity issue. Pecking order theory further explains that firms borrow more when internally generated funds are not sufficient to fulfill the investment needs ((Shyam-Sunder and Myers, 1999). This is confirmed by Myers (2001) and found that debt ratio of the firm reflect the cumulative figure for external financing and firms with higher profit and growth opportunities would use less debt capital. If the firm has no investment opportunities profits are retained to avoid the future external financing. Further firms’ debt ratio represent the accumulated external financing as the firm do not have optimal debt ratio.Based on the pecking order theory Harris and Raviv (1991) claim that capital structure decisions are intended to eliminate the inefficiencies caused by information asymmetry. Information asymmetry between insiders and outsiders and separation of ownership explain why firms avoid capital markets (Myers, 2001). Frydenberg (2004) explains that debt issue of a firm give a signal of confidence to the market that firm is an outstanding firm that their management if not afraid of debt financing. Further Frank and Goyal (2007) show that due to the agency conflict between managers and owners and outside investors pecking order can occur.Studies on pecking order theory have not been able to show the significance of this theory on determining firms’ capital structure. Fama and French (1998) compared the trade off theory and pecking order theory and shows that certain features of financial data are better described by the pecking order theory. This is confirmed by Shyam-Sunder and Myers (1999) Raj Aggarwal et al (2006) and Karadeniz et al (2009). Shortcomings in this theory pressed the further development of the theories of capital structure to solve the capital structure puzzle.2.4.Market Timing TheoryMarket timing theory of capital structure explains that firms issue new equity when their share price is overrated and they buy back shares when the price of shares are underrated (Baker and Wurgler, 2002). This fluctuation in the price of shares affect the corporate financing decisions and finally the capital structure of the firm. Further Baker and Wurgler (2002) explains that consistent with the pecking order theory of capital structure market timing theory does not move to target leverage as equity transactions are completely time to stock market conditions. This implies that capital structure changes persuaded by market timing are long lasting (Bessler et al, 2008).This preposition explains that gearing ratios are negatively related to the past stock returns (Bessler 2004) and Welch (2004) found that the most important determinant of capital structure is the stock returns. However Hovakimian (2006) stated that market timing does not have a significant effects on the firms’ capital structure in the long run. Confirming the same Alti (2006) shows that impact of market timing on gearing will entirely fades within two years.2.5.Credit Rating – Capital Structure (CR-CS) HypothesisKisgen (2006) proposed CR-CS hypothesis as an extension of the existing trade off theory of capital structure. Capital structure decision would change based on the cost and benefit associated with the different rating levels. Further Kisgen (2006) explains that credit rating changes directly affects capital structure decision of the firm and when the firms closer to a rating change issues less debt capital than firms not closer a rating change. CR-CS hypothesis complements traditional capital structure theories in deciding the capital structure.3.ConclusionUnderstanding the capital structure decision of firms is the focus of the all the theories discussed above. Modigliani and Miller (1958) theorem of capital structure irrelevance which was developed based on the fundamental nature of debt and equity of the firm and unrealistic assumptions pave the way to the other theories of capitalstructure. The pecking order theory explains how company raises funds following a hierarchy whereas trade off theory advocates tax shield advantage and value maximizing through the optimal debt to equity mix. Ladder of preference use in the pecking order theory and the tax shield advantage of the trade off theory leads to the same conclusion. The tax shield advantage provides rational for the preference for external debt and which signify trade off theory as complementary to the pecking order theory. Differences in capital structure theories occurs in their explanations of significance of taxes and changes in information and agency costs. These theories that have been developed based onModigliani and Miller (1958) would work healthy under some assumptions only but they do not clarify actual gearing level adopted by firms. Further market timing theory do not explain an optimal capital structure and according to this theory capital structure is an outcome of various different decisions the firm has taken over time. This theory suggests that firms issue new shares when they notice they are overrated and that firms repurchase own shares when they consider these to be underrated. It is important to have more comprehensive view on capital structure of firms as these theories are not being able to explain everything. This proposes that there is no single theory on capital structure which incorporates all important factors and predictions of this theories suggest that capital structure puzzle still remains.中文译文：资本结构理论综述摘要资本结构仍然是金融学界的一个难题。

中文3160字1 外文翻译原文Capital structure influencing factor analysis research Material Source:Theory of Optimal Capital StructureAuthor : R. BareaSince the Modigliani and Miller (1958) since the academic structure of the capital a large number of theoretical and empirical research, trying to identify the potential impact of capital structure choice factors. A lot of literature suggests that the choice of capital structure by the asset structure, firm size, non-debt tax shields, growth, volatility, product uniqueness, profitability and other firm characteristics factors. In addition, the choice of capital structure is also affected by industry characteristics, macroeconomic and institutional environment factors. Harris and Raviv (1991) from the experience of many U.S. companies to sum up: "leverage ratio of fixed assets, non-debt tax shields, growth and company size increases, with the volatility, advertising costs, bankruptcy the possibility of profitability and product uniqueness increases less. "Chinese listed companies due to the particularity of the system, what factors determine the choice of capital structure? Characteristics of institutional factors influenced how the company capital structure choice? Experiences and things like that to be the model and empirical test. In recent years, researchers began to affect the capital structure of listed companies in an empirical study of factors, such as Lu Zhengfei, and Xin Yu (1998), Lishan Min and Su Yun (1999), Xiaozuo Ping and Wu Shinong (2002), and achieved certain results, However, most studies are using a simple regression technique factors on capital structure for empirical analysis. Titman and Wessels (1988) pointed out the shortcomings of this approach: First, there is no wish to measure the sole representative of the property; Second, it is difficult to find and other relevant property is not related to the measurement of a particular property; third, As can be observed variable is not perfectly representative of its properties should be measured, they are used in the regression analysis will lead to errors in variable problem; fourth, the agent variables and measurement error 2 may be explained by variables related to measurement error will produce false (Spurious) related. In this paper, two-stage multiple procedures, application of factor analysis-based model to reduce measurement error, to expand the capital structure of Chinese listed companies Empirical Study.Capital StructureTo build the empirical model, the author according to the capital structure theory and relevant empirical research on factors affecting capital structure analysis, and gives a proxy variable to capture these factors.I, the asset structure Agency theory, balance theory and the theory of asymmetric information are considered assets for capital structure choice. According to agency theory, high-leverage the company's shareholders tend to sub-optimal investment (Jensen and Meckling, 1976; Myers, 1977). The assets of the company secured an opportunity to limit such behavior. Therefore, the value of assets and leverage are related to security. Another problem comes from a proxy service managers tend to consumption. Assets can be secured with fewer companies more vulnerable to such agency costs, because these companies on the capital expenditure monitoring more difficult (Grossman and Hart, 1982). Companies can increase the level of debt as a monitoring tool to mitigate this problem. Therefore, security assets and leverage can be negative. Theory from the balance with debt secured creditors to reduce the potential loss of the debtor's insolvency and, therefore, limit the amount of shareholder wealth, occupation of the debtor. Meanwhile, in bankruptcy the value of tangible assets higher than the value of intangible assets. Therefore, the value of assets and leverage are related to security. Under asymmetric information theory, tangible assets, more businesses will face less information asymmetry, therefore, should issue equity rather than debt. And the existence of asymmetric information, to the sale of secured debt had a negative because it reduces information premium. For asset structure, we use stock / total assets (INV) and fixed assets / total assets (FIX) two proxy variables.II, firm size Many studies suggest that large companies tend to diversify, with more stable cash flow, so low probability of bankruptcy. Warner (1997), Angclua and Meconnel (1982) study found that direct costs of financial distress and negatively related to firm size. Fama and Jensen (1983) that large corporations to smaller companies tend to provide more information on lenders. Therefore, less monitoring costs of large 3 companies, large companies than small companies with high borrowing capacity. Therefore, firm size should be positively correlated with leverage. And Rajan and Zingales (1995) that the large companies than small companies tend to provide more information to the public, may be related to internal investment company size and level of external investment in human negative correlation of asymmetric information. Under asymmetric information theory, large companies should be inclined to equity financing and therefore havelower leverage. The size of the company, we use the natural logarithm of total assets (LN (TA)) and the main business income of the natural logarithm (LN (S)) of two proxy variables.III, the tax That the use of tax-based model of the main benefits of debt financing is tax credits. According to tax-based theory, companies with higher marginal tax rates should use more debt to get the tax shield benefits. Therefore, the effective marginal tax rates should be positively correlated with leverage. Unable to obtain relevant data to calculate the marginal tax rate, we use the average tax rate (TAX) to analyze the tax impact of capital structure choice.IV, non-debt tax shield DeAngelo and Masulis (1980) that non-debt tax shield can be used as an alternative to debt financing, tax benefits, the same as in other cases, the non-debt tax shields have more companies should use less debt. Barton et al (1989), Prowse (1990), Wald (1999), Kim and Sorensen (1986) research shows that non-debt tax shields and leverage negative. In this paper, depreciation / total assets as non-debt tax shield (DEP) of the proxy variables.V. Growth According to agency theory, equity-controlled companies tend to sub-optimal investment will be deprived of their wealth came from the hands of creditors. For high growth companies, because of its future investment opportunities in the choice of greater flexibility, these companies may be more serious agency problems. Myers (1977) that high growth companies lower the future investment in growth companies have more options. If the high-growth companies need external equity financing options to implement in the future, then the company has a large debt may give up this opportunity, because such investment will transfer wealth from shareholders to creditors of the body, which produces the problem of insufficient investment. Therefore, growth should be negatively correlated with leverage. For growth, this growth rate with total assets (GRTA) and the equity value-added rate (GREQ) two 4 proxy variables.VI, volatility Regular payment of debt obligations involved, the highly leveraged company is more vulnerable to financial distress costs. Finance theory suggests that the risk of the company or bankrupt companies should not have a high probability of higher leverage. Therefore, the main business income volatility or commercial risk as the possibility of occurrence of financial distress proxy variables, which should be negatively correlated with leverage. Bradley et al (1984), Titman and Wesssels (1988), Wald (1999) and Booth et al (2001) and other studies have shown that volatility negatively correlated with leverage. In this paper, the main business of the standards slip ((VOL) as a proxy for volatility.VII ability to generate internal resources Trade-off theory is that ability to generate internal resources to leverage a positive correlation, because a strong ability to generate internal resources, companies choose higher leverage to get more debt tax shield. Jensen (1986) pointed out that instead of borrowing to pay dividends to ensure that the management discipline empire method. The benefits of debt "can improve the efficiency of managers and their organizations", which act as a "control effect" role. Therefore, the company has a large free cash flow should have higher debt to limit management's discretion. According to the Theory of Optimal Financing (Pecking order theory), because the existence of asymmetric information, the company follows the financial pecking order model: companies prefer internal resources, internal resources have been exhausted if the company was to issue debt, and finally the issue of equity. Therefore, the ability to generate internal resources, negatively correlated with leverage. The ability to generate internal resources, this paper, the cash rate of sale (NOCFS) and total assets of cash recovery rate (NOCFA) two proxy variables, but to test the Jensen (1986) free cash flow hypothesis proposed in this paper with a cash rate of sales / total Asset growth rate (FCFS) and total assets of cash recovery rate / total assets growth rate (FCFA), as free cash flow (Note: free cash flow is difficult to quantify, can not be obtained directly from the financial data, must be used in other empirical research cash flow concept, and in line with the growth of the company (such as Tobin'Q, growth rate of total assets), investment opportunities, free cash flow and other indicators in order to explain the problem.) proxy variables.VIII, product uniqueness 5 From the stakeholder theory of capital structure and product / factor market theory perspective, the company has a unique product should have less leverage. Titman and Wessels (1988) that, in liquidation, the production of unique or specialized products company, its customers, suppliers, workers will suffer from higher costs. Their workers and suppliers may have the skills and capital, job characteristics, and the customer service more difficult to find a replacement phase. From the agency cost perspective, the expected cost of employees looking for work products and services depends on whether there is unique. Employees working on the implementation of mass-specific work with respect to employees engaged in the former expected to find lower cost. Therefore, when other conditions being equal, and human-related costs for the agency to provide specialized products and services relative to the companies higher. Due to higher leverage will have higher agency costs and bankruptcy costs, sothe uniqueness of products and services will affect the degree of capital structure choice. These companies promote their unique products will suffer more sales costs and advertising costs. In this paper, operating expenses / Income from principal operations (SEXP) as a proxy for product uniqueness.IX liquidity Current ratio of capital structure choice is mixed. On the one hand, high flow rate paid by the company short-term debt due ability. Therefore, liquidity should be positively correlated with leverage. On the other hand, companies with more liquid assets may use these assets to finance its investments. Therefore, the flow of state assets would negatively affect leverage. And, as Prowse (1990) points out, can be used to indicate the liquidity of the assets to creditors, the interests of shareholders to manipulate the expense of the extent of these assets. In this paper, the current ratio (CR) and the quick ratio (QR) as a proxy for liquidity.Ten, industry characteristics The asset risk, asset type, and the demand for external funds vary by industry, the average leverage will vary with the industry. Industry characteristics and capital structure characteristics of the fact that the leverage within the same industry in different sectors of the lever more than the similar, leverage levels to remain relatively the same industry (Bowen et al, 1982; Bradley et al 1984). Bradley et al (1984) studies have shown that regulated industries (telecommunications, electronics, utilities and aviation industry) with higher leverage. This article uses the industry dummy variables to control the impact of industry factors on the lever.2、译文资本结构影响因素的分析研究资料来源: 最优资本结构原理作者: 巴里亚自Modigliani 和Miller(1958) 以来，学术界对资本结构进行了大量的理论和实证研究，试图辨别影响资本结构选择的潜在因素。

中⼩企业资本结构论⽂中英⽂对照资料外⽂翻译⽂献中英⽂对照资料外⽂翻译⽂献表1报告的是解释变量的描述性统计。

在本报告所述期间，在越南中⼩型企业的平均资产负债率约为43.91％。

然⽽，在样品的资产负债率变化很⼤，从最⼤负债⽐率为97.25％，最低4.95％。

随着债务到期，我们发现，⼤部分的中⼩型企业相⽐长期债务雇⽤更多的短期负债，以资助其运作。

平均短期负债⽐率约为41.98％，⽽长期债务⽐率仅为1.93％。

短期负债的中⼩企业多种多样，如商业银⾏贷款，贸易信贷从供应商，客户的预付款，借款的朋友或亲戚，以及⼀些其他来源的。

其他短期负债⽐率，代表⼤多来⾃⽹络，账户融资的总资产的⽐例相对较⾼（24.62％）。

显然，对中⼩型企业的资本结构，资⾦来源从原⽂：Capital Structure in Small andMedium-sized EnterprisesThe Case of VietnamTran Dinh Khoi Nguyen and Neelakantan RamachandranAbstract:The objective of this article is to identify the determinants influencing the capital structure of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam. Empirical results show that SMEs employ mostly short-term liabilities to finance their operations. A firm’s ownership also affects the way a SME finances its operations. The capital structure of SMEs in Vietnamis positively related to growth, business risk, firm size, networking, and relationships with banks; but negatively related to tangibility. Profitability seems to have no significant impact ton the capital structure of Vietnamese SMEs. The strong impact of such determinants as firm ownership, firm size, relationships with banks, and networking reflects the asymmetric features of the fund mobilization process in a transitional economy like that of Vietnam.Key words: SMEs, capital structure, leverage, banking relationships1 IntroductionVietnam has been changing to a market-oriented economy over the past eighteen years, and there is growing recognition of SMEs’ importance in the transitional economy. Consequently, the Government has introduced numerous policies in order to support this important business sector. According to recent statistics, 96 per cent of registered firms are classified as small and medium-sized firms, of which private SMEs account for nearly 82 per cent. The small business sector in Vietnam also generates 25 per cent of annual GDP. However, SMEs still face the difficult issue of access to capital for future development (Doanh and Pentley 1999). This raises a question as to what factors influence the capital structure of Vietnamese SMEs —an important concern in improving financial policies to support the small business sector. There are only a limited number of studies on factors influencing capital structure among Vietnamese firms.As for similar studies in other countries, most empirical evidence on capital structure tends to focus on large firms in developed countries Only in recent years have a few studies examinedthese issues either in developing countries or among small firms A review of empirical studies on the capital structure of SMEs helped us to identify some key issues. Not all determinants are consistent with those predictions advanced by theories of finance. Indeed, there are some contrary results on the relationship between some determinants and capital structure among firms in some countries In addition, the firm characteristics are often at the centre in most empirical studies, while the effects of managers’ behaviour have seldom been examined. In a qualitative piece of research, Michaelas, Chittenden, and Pitziouris (1998) argued that owners’ behaviour, in conjunction with internal and external factors, will determine capital structure decisions. This requires further quantitative studies to examine what factors influence capital structure in the small business sector in developing countries. Based on such gaps in the existing literature, this paper attempts to study features of the capital structure of Vietnamese SMEs, over the period 1998–2001, and examine the influence of specific determinants on SMEs’ capital structure. This study has combined data from financial statements and questionnaires given to SMEs’ financial managers to explore how Vietnamese SMEs finance their operations. The study examines such determinants as growth, tangibility, business risk, profitability, size, ownership, relationship with banks, and networking on three measures of capital structure.2 Literature Review and HypothesesCapital structure is defined as the relative amount of debt and equity used to finance a firm. Theories explaining capital structure and the variation of debt ratios across firms range from the irrelevance of capital structure, proposed by Modigliani and Miller (1958), to a host of relevance theories. If leverage can increase a firm’s value in the MM tax model (Modigliani and Miller 1963; Miller 1977), firms have to trade off between the costs of financial distress, agency costs (Jensen and Meckling 1976) and tax benefits, so as to have an optimal capital structure. However, asymmetric information and the pecking order theory (Myers and Majluf 1984; Myers 1984) state that there is no well defined target debt ratio. The latter model suggests that there tends to be a hierarchy in firms’preferences for financing: first using internally available funds, followed by debt, and finally external equity. These theories identify a large number of attributes influencing a firm’s capital structure.Although the theories have not considered firm size, this section will attempt to apply the theories of capital structure in the small business sector, anddevelop testable hypotheses that examine the determinants of capital structure in Vietnamese SMEs.2.1 Firm GrowthWe think that this proposition is more relevant in the context of the small business sector in Vietnam, where there was a scarcity of long-term credits in the period 1998–2001 (ADB 2002). In addition, as most SMEs in Vietnam operate in the trading and service sectors, demand for new investment in fixed assets are relatively low. Doanh and Pentley (1999) also argued that Vietnamese SMEs often look for short-term bank loans or other resources from relatives, friends or suppliers to finance their operations. Taking percentage change in total assets as a measure of firm’s growth, we hypothesize that:A firm’s growth will be positively related to debt ratios.2.2 Business RiskAccording to the theory of financial distress, higher business risk increases the probability of financial distress, so firms have to trade off between tax benefits and bankruptcy costs. Thus, it predicts a negative relationship between business risk and leverage. In the context of the small business sector, Queen and Roll (1987) argue that SMEs are likely to have a higher level of business risk, relative to large firms. Therefore, we propose the hypothesis:Business risk will be negatively related to debtratios.2. 3 Firm OwnershipThe role of state ownership is still a controversial topic in Vietnam’s reform process. As noted above, the Vietnamese financial system is characterized by a bank-based system where SOCBs1 dominate and provide the bulk of loans in the economy (ADB 2002). Soo (1999) also pointed out that most SOCB credits are channeled to SOEs. It can be validly argued that state-owned SMEs have their own advantages over private SMEs in accessing credit from SOCBs. The plausible explanation for this argument is that state-owned SMEs have long-lasting ties with commercial banks from the pre-reform era. Because they are state-owned, SOCBs’ policies favour the state business sector, as compared to the private business sector, notably in terms of interest rates, banking procedures, and collateral requirements. Therefore, it could be expected that state-owned SMEs have more opportunities to access bank loans. Based on this argument, we hypothesize that: State-owned SMEs will employ more debt than private SMEs.。

文献出处：Kadri Cemil Akyüz, İlker Akyüz, Hasan Serіn, et al. The financing preferences and capital structure of micro, small and medium sized firm owners in forest products industry in Turkey[J]. Forest Policy & Economics, 2016, 8(3):301-311.第一部分为译文，第二部分为原文。

默认格式：中文五号宋体，英文五号Times New Roma，行间距1.5倍。

土耳其林业行业微型以及中小企业的融资偏好和资本结构Kadri Cemil Akyqz, I˙lker Akyqz, Hasan SerJn, Hicabi Cindik卡德里杰米尔，拉克·阿基茨，哈桑·塞尔文，黑卡比克里迪克摘要：资本结构的大多数理论和实证研究都集中于大型企业。

对微型，中小型企业进行了数量有限的资本结构研究，在对影响家族企业主的资金决策的因素的调查是非常少的。

本研究探索MSMS公司所有者的资本结构和融资偏好，并更加侧重于林业产品行业中MSMS 公司的初始和持续融资中披露的债务与股本偏好。

在本研究中，土耳其黑海地区18个城市对林业产品行业的MSMS企业所有者的财务偏好进行了调查。

根据对851家企业的抽样调查，确定了这些部门的一些财务特征和资本结构。

从研究中得出的初步结果表明，MSMS 公司的所有者倾向于内部财务来源，反映在初始和持续的企业设施中，外部市场的成本资本过高。

关键词：土耳其小公司林业产品行业金融偏好财务结构小企业的一般特点五十年代和六十年代，垂直整合的大型企业集团框架内组建的大型生产单位几乎被普遍认为是经济社会发展总体模式中最重要的要素之一。

然而，随着1973年石油和能源价格冲击之后出现的动荡，出现了一些惨烈的案例，大型企业遇到经济困难，为了生存而被迫脱离劳动力（Henrekson和Johanson，1999 ）。

中英文对照外文翻译(文档含英文原文和中文翻译)The effect of capital structure on profitability : an empirical analysis of listed firms in Ghana IntroductionThe capital structure decision is crucial for any business organization. The decision is important because of the need to maximize returns to various organizational constituencies, and also because of the impact such a decision has on a firm’s ability to deal with its competitive environment. The capital structure of a firm is actually a mix of different securities. In general, a firm can choose among many alternative capital structures. It can issue a large amount of debt or very little debt. It can arrange lease financing, use warrants, issue convertible bonds, sign forward contracts or trade bond swaps. It can issue dozens of distinct securities in countless combinations; however, it attempts to find the particular combination that maximizes its overall market value.A number of theories have been advanced in explaining the capital structure of firms. Despite the theoretical appeal of capital structure, researchers in financial management have not found the optimal capital structure. The best that academics and practitioners have been able to achieve are prescriptions that satisfy short-term goals. For example, the lack of a consensus about what would qualify as optimal capital structure has necessitated the need for this research. A better understanding of the issues at hand requires a look at the concept of capital structure and its effect on firm profitability. This paper examines the relationship between capital structure and profitability of companies listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange during the period 1998-2002. The effect of capital structure on the profitability of listed firms in Ghana is a scientific area that has not yet been explored in Ghanaian finance literature.The paper is organized as follows. The following section gives a review of the extant literature on the subject. The next section describes the data and justifies the choice of the variables used in the analysis. The model used in the analysis is then estimated. The subsequent section presents and discusses the results of the empirical analysis. Finally, the last section summarizes the findings of the research and also concludes the discussion.Literature on capital structureThe relationship between capital structure and firm value has been the subject of considerable debate. Throughout the literature, debate has centered on whether there is an optimal capital structure for an individual firm or whether the proportion of debt usage is irrelevant to the individual firm’s value. The capital structure of a firm concerns the mix of debt and equity the firm uses in its operation. Brealey and Myers (2003) contend that the choice of capital structure is fundamentally a marketing problem. They state that the firm can issue dozens of distinct securities in countless combinations, but it attempts to find the particular combination that maximizes market value. According to Weston and Brigham (1992), the optimal capital structure is the one that maximizes the market value of the firm’s outstanding shares.Fama and French (1998), analyzing the relationship among taxes, financing decisions, and the firm’s value, concluded that the debt does not concede tax b enefits. Besides, the high leverage degree generates agency problems among shareholders and creditors that predict negative relationships between leverage and profitability. Therefore, negative information relating debt and profitability obscures the tax benefit of the debt. Booth et al. (2001) developed a study attempting to relate the capital structure of several companies in countries with extremely different financial markets. They concluded thatthe variables that affect the choice of the capital structure of the companies are similar, in spite of the great differences presented by the financial markets. Besides, they concluded that profitability has an inverse relationship with debt level and size of the firm. Graham (2000) concluded in his work that big and profitable companies present a low debt rate. Mesquita and Lara (2003) found in their study that the relationship between rates of return and debt indicates a negative relationship for long-term financing. However, they found a positive relationship for short-term financing and equity.Hadlock and James (2002) concluded that companies prefer loan (debt) financing because they anticipate a higher return. Taub (1975) also found significant positive coefficients for four measures of profitability in a regression of these measures against debt ratio. Petersen and Rajan (1994) identified the same association, but for industries. Baker (1973), who worked with a simultaneous equations model, and Nerlove (1968) also found the same type of association for industries. Roden and Lewellen (1995) found a significant positive association between profitability and total debt as a percentage of the total buyout-financing package in their study on leveraged buyouts. Champion (1999) suggested that the use of leverage was one way to improve the performance of an organization.In summary, there is no universal theory of the debt-equity choice. Different views have been put forward regarding the financing choice. The present study investigates the effect of capital structure on profitability of listed firms on the GSE.MethodologyThis study sampled all firms that have been listed on the GSE over a five-year period (1998-2002). Twenty-two firms qualified to be included in the study sample. Variables used for the analysis include profitability and leverage ratios. Profitability is operationalized using a commonly used accounting-based measure: the ratio of earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) to equity. The leverage ratios used include:. short-term debt to the total capital;. long-term debt to total capital;. total debt to total capital.Firm size and sales growth are also included as control variables.The panel character of the data allows for the use of panel data methodology. Panel data involves the pooling of observations on a cross-section of units over several time periods and provides results that are simply not detectable in pure cross-sections or pure time-series studies. A general model for panel data that allows the researcher to estimate panel data with great flexibility and formulate the differences in the behavior of thecross-section elements is adopted. The relationship between debt and profitability is thus estimated in the following regression models:ROE i,t =β0 +β1SDA i,t +β2SIZE i,t +β3SG i,t + ëi,t (1) ROE i,t=β0 +β1LDA i,t +β2SIZE i,t +β3SG i,t + ëi,t (2) ROE i,t=β0 +β1DA i,t +β2SIZE i,t +β3SG i,t + ëi,t (3)where:. ROE i,t is EBIT divided by equity for firm i in time t;. SDA i,t is short-term debt divided by the total capital for firm i in time t;. LDA i,t is long-term debt divided by the total capital for firm i in time t;. DA i,t is total debt divided by the total capital for firm i in time t;. SIZE i,t is the log of sales for firm i in time t;. SG i,t is sales growth for firm i in time t; and. ëi,t is the error term.Empirical resultsTable I provides a summary of the descriptive statistics of the dependent and independent variables for the sample of firms. This shows the average indicators of variables computed from the financial statements. The return rate measured by return on equity (ROE) reveals an average of 36.94 percent with median 28.4 percent. This picture suggests a good performance during the period under study. The ROE measures the contribution of net income per cedi (local currency) invested by the firms’ stockholders; a measure of the efficiency of the owners’ invested capital. The variable SDA measures the ratio of short-term debt to total capital. The average value of this variable is 0.4876 with median 0.4547. The value 0.4547 indicates that approximately 45 percent of total assets are represented by short-term debts, attesting to the fact that Ghanaian firms largely depend on short-term debt for financing their operations due to the difficulty in accessing long-term credit from financial institutions. Another reason is due to the under-developed nature of the Ghanaian long-term debt market. The ratio of total long-term debt to total assets (LDA) also stands on average at 0.0985. Total debt to total capital ratio(DA) presents a mean of 0.5861. This suggests that about 58 percent of total assets are financed by debt capital. The above position reveals that the companies are financially leveraged with a large percentage of total debt being short-term.Table I.Descriptive statisticsMean SD Minimum Median Maximum━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ROE 0.3694 0.5186 -1.0433 0.2836 3.8300SDA 0.4876 0.2296 0.0934 0.4547 1.1018LDA 0.0985 0.1803 0.0000 0.0186 0.7665DA 0.5861 0.2032 0.2054 0.5571 1.1018SIZE 18.2124 1.6495 14.1875 18.2361 22.0995SG 0.3288 0.3457 20.7500 0.2561 1.3597━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Regression analysis is used to investigate the relationship between capital structure and profitability measured by ROE. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression results are presented in Table II. The results from the regression models (1), (2), and (3) denote that the independent variables explain the debt ratio determinations of the firms at 68.3, 39.7, and 86.4 percent, respectively. The F-statistics prove the validity of the estimated models. Also, the coefficients are statistically significant in level of confidence of 99 percent.The results in regression (1) reveal a significantly positive relationship between SDA and profitability. This suggests that short-term debt tends to be less expensive, and therefore increasing short-term debt with a relatively low interest rate will lead to an increase in profit levels. The results also show that profitability increases with the control variables (size and sales growth). Regression (2) shows a significantly negative association between LDA and profitability. This implies that an increase in the long-term debt position is associated with a decrease in profitability. This is explained by the fact that long-term debts are relatively more expensive, and therefore employing high proportions of them could lead to low profitability. The results support earlier findings by Miller (1977), Fama and French (1998), Graham (2000) and Booth et al. (2001). Firm size and sales growth are again positively related to profitability.The results from regression (3) indicate a significantly positive association between DA and profitability. The significantly positive regression coefficient for total debt implies that an increase in the debt position is associated with an increase in profitability: thus, the higher the debt, the higher the profitability. Again, this suggests that profitable firms depend more on debt as their main financing option. This supports the findings of Hadlock and James (2002), Petersen and Rajan (1994) and Roden and Lewellen (1995) that profitable firms use more debt. In the Ghanaian case, a high proportion (85 percent)of debt is represented by short-term debt. The results also show positive relationships between the control variables (firm size and sale growth) and profitability.Table II.Regression model results━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Profitability (EBIT/equity)Ordinary least squares━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Variable 1 2 3SIZE 0.0038 (0.0000) 0.0500 (0.0000) 0.0411 (0.0000)SG 0.1314 (0.0000) 0.1316 (0.0000) 0.1413 (0.0000)SDA 0.8025 (0.0000)LDA -0.3722(0.0000)DA -0.7609(0.0000)R²0.6825 0.3968 0.8639SE 0.4365 0.4961 0.4735Prob. (F) 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ConclusionsThe capital structure decision is crucial for any business organization. The decision is important because of the need to maximize returns to various organizational constituencies, and also because of the impact such a decision has on an organization’s ability to deal with its competitive environment. This present study evaluated the relationship between capital structure and profitability of listed firms on the GSE during a five-year period (1998-2002). The results revealed significantly positive relation between SDA and ROE, suggesting that profitable firms use more short-term debt to finance their operation. Short-term debt is an important component or source of financing for Ghanaian firms, representing 85 percent of total debt financing. However, the results showed a negative relationship between LDA and ROE. With regard to the relationship between total debt and profitability, the regression results showed a significantly positive association between DA and ROE. This suggests that profitable firms depend more on debt as their main financing option. In the Ghanaian case, a high proportion (85 percent) of the debt is represented in short-term debt.译文加纳上市公司资本结构对盈利能力的实证研究论文简介资本结构决策对于任何商业组织都是至关重要的。

外文文献翻译译文原文：Capital Structure around the World: The Roles of FirmandCountry-Specific DeterminantsWe analyze the importance of firm-specific and country-specific factors in the leverage choice of firms from 42 countries around the world. Our analysis yields two new results. First, we find that firm-specific determinants of leverage differ across countries, while prior studies implicitly assume equal impact of firm-specific factors. Second, although we concur with the conventional direct impact of country-specific factors on the capital structure of firms, we show that there is an indirect impact because country-specific factors also influence the roles of firm-specific determinants of leverage.Prior research (e.g. Demirgüç-Kuntand Maksimovic, 1999; Booth, Demirgüç-Kunt andMaksimovic, 2001; Claessens, Djankov and Nenova, 2001; Bancel and Mittoo, 2004) finds thata firm’s capital structure is not only influenced by firm-specific factors but also by country specificfactors. In this study, we demonstrate that country-specific factors can affect corporateleverage in two ways. On the one hand, these factors can influence leverage directly. Forexample, a more developed bond market facilitating issue and trading of public bonds may leadto the use of higher leverage in a country, while a developed stock market has theoppositeeffect. On the other hand, we show that country-specific factors can also influence corporateleverage indirectly through their impact on firm-specific factors’ roles. For example, althoughthe dev eloped bond market of a country stimulates the use of debt, the role of asset tangibility ascollateral in borrowing will be rather limited for firms in the same country. In other words,country-characteristics may explain why in one country a firm’s tangibi lity affects leverage, butnot in another country. Previous studies have not systematically investigated these indirecteffects.International studies comparing differences in the capital structure between countriesstarted to appear only during the last decade. An early investigation of seven advancedindustrialized countries is performed by Rajan and Zingales (1995). They argue that althoughcommon firm-specific factors significantly influence the capital structure of firms acrosscountries, several country-specific factors also play an important role. Demirgüç-Kunt andMaksimovic (1999) compare capital structure of firms from 19 developed countries and 11developing countries. They find that institutional differences between developed and developingcountries explain a large portion of the variation in the use of long-term debt. They also observethat some institutional factors in developing countries influence the leverage of large and smallfirms differently. Several recent studies on the field have indicated that even amongdevelopedeconomies like the U.S. and European countries, the financing policies and managers’ behaviorare influenced by the institutional environment and international operations (see, for example, Graham and Harvey, 2001; Bancel and Mittoo, 2004; and Brounen, De Jong and Koedijk,2006).The literature specifically discusses only the direct impact of country characteristics onleverage. In an analysis of ten developing countries, Booth et al. (2001) find that capitalstructure decisions of firms in these countries are affected by the same firm-specific factors as indeveloped countries. However, they find that there are differences in the way leverage isaffected by country-specific factors such as GDP growth and capital market development. Theyconclude that more research needs to be done to understand the impact of institutional factors onfirms’ capital structure choices. The importance of country-specific factors in determining crosscountrycapital structure choice of firms is also acknowledged by Fan et al. (2006) who analyzea larger sample of 39 countries. They find a significant impact of a few additional country-specificfactors such as the degree of development in the banking sector, and equity and bondmarkets. In another study of 30 OECD countries, Song and Philippatos (2004) report that mostcross-sectional variation in international capital structure is caused by the heterogeneity of firm-,industry-, and country-specific determinants. However, they do notfind evidence to support theimportance of cross-country legal institutional differences in affecting corporate leverage.Giannetti (2003) argues that the failure to find a significant impact of country-specific variablesmay be due to the bias induced in many studies by including only large listed companies. Sheanalyzes a large sample of unlisted firms from eight European countries and finds a significantinfluence on the leverage of individual firms of a few institutional variables such as creditorprotection, stock market development and legal enforcement. Similarly, Hall et al. (2004) analyze a large sample of unlisted firms from eight European countries. They observe crosscountryvariation in the determinants of capital structure and suggest that this variation could bedue to different country-specific variables.A remarkable feature of existing studies on international capital structure is the implicitassumption that the impact of firm-specific factors on leverage is equal across countries (see forexample Booth et al., 2001; Giannetti, 2003; Song and Philippatos, 2004; and Fan et al., 2006). By reporting the estimated coefficients for firm-specificdeterminants of leverage per country, these papers, on the one hand, acknowledge that theimpact of firm-level determinants does differ in terms of signs, magnitudes and significancelevels. On the other hand, in the analysis of country-specific determinants of corporateleverage,these papers also make use of country dummies in pooled firm-year regressions, thus forcing thefirm-specific coefficients to have the same value. With an extremely large number of firm-yearobservations, it is more likely for this procedure to produce statistically significant results formany country-specific variables. But, utilizing an alternative regression framework where asingle average capital structure for each country is used as an observation, one hardly findsstrong evidence on this issue. As an additional contribution of our paper, we show the invalidity of this implicit assumption. Our analysis without imposing such restriction thus provides a more reliable analysis on theimportance of country-specific variables.The study encompasses a large number of countries (42 in total) from every continent forthe period 1997-2001. We construct a database of nearly 12,000 firms (about 60,000 firm-yearobservations). All types of firms –large and small – are included as long as a reasonable amountof data is available. We analyze the standard firm-specific determinants of leverage like firmsize, asset tangibility, profitability, firm risk and growth opportunities. Besides, we incorporate alarge number of country-specific variables in our analysis, including legal enforcement,shareholder/creditor right protection, market/bank-based financial system, stock/bond marketdevelopment and growth rate in a country’s gross domestic product (GDP).Firm-specific and country-specific determinants are the two major types of variables thatwe take into account when analyzing the impacts on firms’ leverage choice.The firms in our sample cover 42 countries that are equally divided between developedand developing countries. Data for leverage and firm-specific variables are collected fromCOMPUSTAT Global database. We exclude financial firms and utilities. Data on country-specificvariables are collected from a variety of sources, mainly World Development Indicatorsfiles and Financial Structure Database of the World Bank. Few country-specific variables aretaken from previous studies including La Porta et al. (1998), Claessens and Klapper (2002) andBerkowitz et al. (2003).Our sample period covers the years 1997-2001. The selection of a time-period involves atrade-off between the number of countries that can be included in the study and the availabilityof enough firm-specific data. Whenever needed, we resort to some other sources to collect anymissing data. It is still impossible to obtain data for each and every variable from all 42countries during this time period. The final sample consists of 59,225 observations on 11,845firms. Even though we aim to keep the number of countries high enough and also maintain a reasonable number of firms, our dataset has unavoidably a limited number of firms in a fewcountries.Analyzing the direct impact of country-specific factors on leverage, the evidencesuggests that creditor right protection, bond market development,and GDP growth rate have asignificant influence on corporate capital structure. In measuring the impact indirectly, we findevidence for the importance of legal enforcement, creditor/shareholder right protection, andmacro-economic measures such as capital formation and GDP growth rate. It implies that incountries with a better legal environment and more stable and healthier economic conditions, firms are not only likely to take more debt, but also the effects of firm-level determinants of leverageare also reinforced. Overall, the evidence provided here highlights the importance of country-specificfactors in corporate capital structure decisions. Our conclusion is that country-specificfactors do matter in determining and affecting the leverage choice around the world, and it isuseful to take into account these factors in the analysis of a country’s capital structure. If thelimitations of data, especially the number of countries, can be overcome, one might find evenmore significant results with respect to the impact of country-specificfactors.We first make a detailed comparative analysis of the impact of various firm-specificfactors. We find across a large number of countries that the impact of some factors liketangibility, firm size, risk, and profitability and growth opportunities is strong and consistent withstandard capital structure theories. Our study shows that, in terms of firm-specific determinantsof leverage, capital structure theories doexplain the corporate leverage choice in a large numberof countries. Using a model with several firm-specific explanatory variables, we find a relativelylarge explanatory power of leverage regressions in most countries. However, a few determinantsremain insignificant, and in some countries one or two coefficients are significant with anunexpected sign. Performing a simple statistical test, we reject the hypothesis that firm-specificcoefficients across countries are equal. It indicates that the often-made implicit assumption ofequal firm-level determinants of leverage across countries does not hold.In the analysis of the direct impact of country-specific factors, we observe that certainfactors like GDP growth rate, bond market development and creditor rightprotectionsignificantly explain the variation in capital structure across countries. Moreover, we findconsiderable explanatory power of country-specific variables beyond firm-specific factors. Wethen proceed to measure the indirect impact of country-specific variables. The resultsconsistently show the importance of country factors as we document significant effects of thesevia firm-specific determinants. For example, we observe that in countries with a better lawenforcement system and a more healthy economy, firms are not only likely to take more debt,but the effects of some firm-level determinants of leverage such as growth opportunities,profitability and liquidity are also reinforced. Our findings indicate that theconventionaltheories on capitalstructure developed using listed firms in the United States as a role model,work well in similar economies with developed legal environment and high level of economicdevelopment. The indirect impact analysis also indicates that firm-specific variables aresignificantly influenced by several country-specific variables but in different ways.Capital structure theories have been mostly developed and tested in the single-countrycontext. Researchers have identified several firm-specific determinants of a firm’s leverage,based on the three most accepted theoretical models of capital structure, i.e. the static trade-offtheory, the agency theory and the pecking-order theory. A large number of studies have beenconducted to date investigating to what extent these factors influence capital structures of firmsoperating within a specific country. In this paper, we examine the role of firm-specificdeterminants of corporate leverage choice around the world. We analyze a large sample of 42countries, divided equally between developed and developing countries. Our main objective isto verify the role of various country-specific factors in determining corporate capital structure.We distinguish two types of effects: the direct effect on leverage and the indirect effect throughthe influence on firm-specific determinants of corporate leverage.We find that the impact of several firm-specific factors liketangibility, firm size, risk,growth and profitability on cross-country capital structure is significant and consistent with theprediction of conventional capital structure theories. On the other hand, we also observe that ineach country one or more firm-specific factors are not significantly related to leverage. Forsome countries, we find results that are inconsistent with theoretical predictions.Several studies analyzing international capital structure assume cross-country equality offirm-level determinants. We show that this assumption is unfounded. Rather, it is necessary toconduct an analysis of country-specific factors by including countries as observations and avoida specification using a pooled regression method. We conduct regressions using country-specificfactors to explain coefficients of country dummies as well as firm-specificdeterminants.Source:Abede Jong, RezaulK abir, 2007.9 “Capital Structure around the World: The Roles of FirmandCountry-Specific Determinants”. ERIM Report Series Reach in Management.September.pp.58-63.译文：世界各地的资本结构：公司和国家因素在其中的影响我们从世界42个国家中分析了公司在选择财务杠杆所需要考虑的公司特有因素和国家因素的重要性。

资本结构代理成本外文翻译文献(文档含中英文对照即英文原文和中文翻译)原文：The Impact of Capital Structure on Agency Costs[Abstract] This paper aims to provide empirical evidence on the agency costs hypothesis which suggests that increase of leverage may reduce agency costs. Both multivariate tests and univariate tests are employed in this study. The multivariate tests reveal that general relationship between leverage and agency costs is significantly negative. Univariate tests are further used to assess whether agency costs are significantly different when a firm has a relatively higher debt to asset ratio from when it is less leveraged. Similar supporting evidence is found for the agency costs hypothesis. Moreover, results from the univariate tests also indicate that this general negativerelationship no longer holds when an extremely high level of leverage is present.[Keywords] Agency costs, Leverage, Agency costs hypothesis, and Opposite effect1. IntroductionIn their seminal work, Jensen and Meckling (1976) point out that agency costs occur due to incomplete alignment of the agent’s and the owner’s interests. The separation of ownership and control may generate agency costs. Two types of agency costs are identified in the paper by Jensen and Meckling (1976): agency costs derived from conflicts between outside equity holders and owner-managers, and conflicts between equity holders and debt holders. From then on, a great amount of research has been devoted to demonstrate the interaction between agency costs and financial decisions, governance decisions, dividend policy, and capital structure decisions.Much empirical evidence collected by researchers, for example, Ang et al. (2000), and Fleming et al. (2005), shows that agency costs generated from the conflicts between outside equity holders and owner-manager could be reduced by increasing the owner-managers’ proportion in equity, i.e., agency costs vary inversely with the manager’s ownership. However, the conflicts between equity holders and debt holders would be more complicated. Theoretically, Jensen and Meckling (1976) argue that there should be an optimal capital structure, under which the lowest agency costs of a firm can be deduced from an independent variable --- “the ratio of outside equity to the whole outside financing”. The locus of agency costs, which is equal to agency costs of outside equity and the ones of debt, would be a convex curve. This implies that agency costs should not be monotonic any more.Some researchers such as Grossman and Hart (1982); Williams (1987), argue that high leverage reduces agency costs and increases firm value byencouraging managers to act more in the interests of equity holders. This argument is known as the agency costs hypothesis. Higher leverage may reduce agency costs through the monitoring activities by debt holders (Ang et al., 2000), the threat of liquidation which may cause managers to lose reputation, salaries, etc. (William, 1987), pressure to generate cash flow for the payment of interest expenses (Jensen 1986), and curtailment of overinvestment (Harvey et al., 2004).However, as the proportion of debt in the capital structure increases beyond a certain point, the opposite effect of leverage on agency costs may occur (Altman, 1984 and Titman, 1984). When leverage becomes relatively high, further increases may generate significant agency costs. Three reasons are identified in the literature which can cause this opposite effect: first reason is the increase of bankruptcy costs (Titman 1984). Second reason is that managers may reduce their effort to control risk which result in higher expected costs of financial distress, bankruptcy, or liquidation (Berger and Bonaccorsi di Patti, 2005). Finally, inefficient use of excessive cash used by managers for empire building would also increase agency costs (Jensen, 1986).2. Literature ReviewJensen and Meckling (1976) identify agency costs derived from conflicts between equity holders and owner-managers as “residual loss” which means agent consumes various pecuniary and non-pecuniary benefits from the firm to maximize his own utility. Related to this issue, Harris & Raviv (1990), Childs et al. (2005) and Lee et al. (2004) argue that managers always want to continue firm’s current operations even if liquidation of the firm is preferred by investors. Also, Stulz (1990), Alvarez et al. (2006) and Kent et al. (2004) suggest the manager always want to invest all available funds even if paying out cash is better for outside shareholders, and conflictbetween the manager and equity holders cannot be resolved through contracts based on cash flows and investment expenditures.Agency theory becomes more complicated when debt holders’ interest is considered. As a financing strategy, debt is widely discussed in capital structure literatures. Modigliani and Miller (1963) demonstrate that in order to raise the value of a firm, the amount of debt financing should be as big as possible for tax subsidyii. However, their theory ignores the agency costs of debt. Theoretically, Jensen and Meckling (1976) point out that the optimal utilization of debt is when the debt is utilized to the point where marginal wealth benefits of the tax subsidy are just equal to the marginal wealth effects of agency costs.A number of researchers focus on the issue of improvement of firm efficiency by reducing agency costs. Some of them focus on the methods to control managers’ behaviors. For instance, Fama (1980) conducts a discussion of how the pressure from managerial labor markets helps to discipline managers. He points out that the key condition to acquire absolute control of managerial behavior through wage adjustments is that the weight of the wage revision process is sufficient enough to resolve any potential managerial incentives problems. Another example is Chance’s (1997) argument on a derivate substitution of executive compensation. He suggests giving the manager stocks without right to vote, which could be beneficial in preventing an executive from wielding too much control. Other researchers are interested in the optimal capital structure under which value of firms could be maximized while agency costs could be minimized. Based on these observations, the agency costs hypothesis stating that the leverage affects agency costs is put forward.Jensen and Meckling (1976) argue that monitoring activities by debt holders will tend to increase the optimal level of monitoring and thereforewill increase the marginal benefits. What’s more, banks which are one of the major sources of external funds especially for small firms also play a crucial role in monitoring the activities of managers.However, as suggested by Jensen and Meckling (1976), the effect of leverage on total agency costs could not be monotoniciii. When the proportion of debt in total capital increases beyond a certain point, the loss would increase due to negative net present value projects, and the firm will not be able to meet current payments on a debt obligation, thus bankruptcy will occur (Terje et al. 2006). Although Haugen and Senbet (1978) argue that bankruptcy cos ts are an insignificant determinant of a firm’s capital structure, Altman (1984) finds that indirect costs associated with bankruptcy are not insignificant when these costs are accounted for the first time. Titman (1984) gives a possible theoretical link between liquidation and capital structure. It links the potentially substantial costs associated with liquidation with the event of bankruptcy. Furthermore, Berger and Bonaccorsi di Patti (2005) suggest that in highly leveraged firms, managers may shift risk or reduce effort to control risk which would also result in expected costs of financial stress, bankruptcy, or liquidation. Additionally, inefficient use of excessive cash which is derived from higher than normal leverage level for empire building would also increase agency costs (Jensen, 1986).Therefore, at low level of leverage, increases of leverage will produce positive incentives for managers and reduce total agency costs by reducing the counterpart of external equity. However, after reaching a certain point, where bankruptcy and distress become more likely and the agency costs of outside debt overwhelm the agency costs of outside equity, any further increases in leverage will then result in higher total agency costs.The subject of the measurements of the agency costs magnitude and firm performance has been widely discussed in the literature. Thesemeasurements are usually taken by using ratios fashioned from financial statements or stock market data. Ang et al. (2000) made one of the first attempts to measure the magnitude of agency costs by two ratios from financial statements. First ratio is a proxy for the so-called direct agency costs. In order to facilitate comparisons, it is standardized as operating expenses to sales ratio. Second ratio is a proxy for the loss in revenues attributable to inefficient asset utilization. This type of agency costs is derived from management’s shirking or from poor investment decisions. This ratio is calculated by annual sales to total assets. Berger and Bonaccorsi di Patti (2006) take a different approach and employ profit efficiency as the performance measure. They use profit efficiency, rather than cost efficiency to evaluate the performance of managers, since profit efficiency explains how well managers raise revenues while reduce costs and it processes tighter relationship with the concept of value maximization. Additionally, Saunders et al. (1990); Cole and Mehran (1998) use stock market returns and their volatility to measure agency costs and firm performance.3. Data and MethodologyData used in this study are drawn from Datastream. 323 UK companies are selected from FTSE ALL SHARE index. We choose UK public companies in this study because of three reasons: First, The UK is a country with mature money and capital markets where debt financing is relatively easy to conduct by companies. Second, maximization of shareholders’ wealth is the dominant goal of management in the Anglo-American world which is consistent with the theory this study is based on. Third, data of public companies could reflect the effect of leverage on agency costs more accurately and sensitively especially in the efficient markets like the UK.There are five variables used in this study. Table 1 provides a summary of these variables along with definitions. Following Ang et al. (2000)’s study,we focus on measuring the direct agency costs which is the ratio of operating expenses to sales. This ratio indicates how effectively the firm’s management controls operating expenses and it tends to capture the impact of agency costs such as excessive perquisite consumption. Operating expenses variable here excludes corporate wages, salaries and other labor-related items, interest expense, rent, leasing and hiring expenses, purchases, depreciation and bad assets written off. A series of checks and filters on the data have been conducted to reduce the sample from a maximum of approximately 400iv firms to a final sample of 323 firms for Year 2004 to Year 2005. The top and bottom 5%v are also removed to avoid the possible outlier effect.The measurements of leverage and agency costs are critical. Debt to asset ratio is employed which is total debts divided by total assets. However, we do not differentiate between long-term or short-term debt. Three other variables are considered to control other confounding effects: performance (proxied by return on asset), firm size (proxied by log of sales), and industry classification (13 industry dummies). Note that we include 13 industry dummy variables in this study because the ratio of operating expenses to sales varies across industries due to the varying importance of inventory and fixed assets.译文：关于资本结构中代理成本理论的影响[导言] 本文旨在提供经验证据对代理成本假说这表明增加的杠杆可以减少代理成本。

企业资本结构问题研究国内外文献综述目录企业资本结构问题研究国内外文献综述 (1)1.1 资本结构基本理论相关研究 (1)1.2 资本结构影响因素相关研究 (2)1.3 资本结构优化及方法相关研究 (2)1.4 文献述评 (3)参考文献 (3)1.1 资本结构基本理论相关研究20世纪50年代，Durand建议应该结合营业利润法、净收益法和传统的折中方法来计算企业的资本结构[1]。

1958年，Modigliani和Miller提出经典的MM理论，他们认为公司的市值和其资本结构无关在忽略公司所得税情况下，而不考虑其负债规模[2]。

1963年，Miller又对该理论进行了改进，在原有模型上加入了个人所得税这个影响因素，发现企业的财务风险越大，债务越大[3]。

1977年，Warner 提出权衡理论，认为如果公司在负债经营带来的税盾利益和破产成本之间进行权衡，则能够确定其最佳资本结构[4]。

1984年，Myers和Majluf提出了融资优先理论。

他们认为，当一家公司筹集资金或进行融资组合时，它会首先选择从公司内部筹集资金，接着选择债券融资，最后进行股权融资。

1995年，我国张维迎率先介绍了信息传递理论、激励理论和控制理论，让读者对这三种理论以及相应的模型有了更深刻的了解。

然后，他从其他更多的角度对资本结构进行了进一步的分析研究，发现因为内部影响因素的不同，不同的企业资本结构不相同[5]。

因此，在研究企业资本结构问题时，应该从多层次、多角度的内部结合外部环境共同分析。

2003年，潘敏认为，公司在治理理论的指导作用下，找到的资本结构是最适合其自身发展的。

尽管她没有使用实证检验方法得出结论，但她为中国学者今后开展研究奠定了良好的开端作用。

研究中，她关注的融资模型，财务合同和公司治理机制之间的关系也已成为学术讨论和分析的焦点[7]。

1.2 资本结构影响因素相关研究2005年，Nichiren Fashionista和Kohinoor Baba基于德国公司从1990年到1999年的数据得出的调查结果得出如下[8]：首先他们发现企业如何进行融资会影响企业资本结构，进而得出行业因素会影响公司融资方式的结论，最后发现一家公司资本结构受到其内部结构的影响很明显。

Optimal Capital Structure: Reflections on economic and other valuesBy Marc Schauten & Jaap Spronk11. IntroductionDespite a vast literature on the capital structure of the firm (see Harris and Raviv, 1991, Graham and Harvey, 2001, Brav et al., 2005, for overviews) there still is a big gap between theory and practice (see e.g. Cools, 1993, Tempelaar, 1991, Boot & Cools, 1997). Starting with the seminal work by Modigliani & Miller (1958, 1963), much attention has been paid to the optimality of capital structure from the shareholders’ point of view.Over the last few decades studies have been produced on the effect of other stakeholders’interests on capital structure. Well-known examples are the interests of customers who receive product or service guarantees from the company (see e.g. Grinblatt & Titman, 2002). Another area that has received considerable attention is the relation between managerial incentives and capital structure (Ibid.). Furthermore, the issue of corporate control2 (see Jensen & Ruback, 1983) and, related, the issue of corporate governance3 (see Shleifer & Vishney, 1997), receive a lion’s part of the more recent academic attention for capital structure decisions.From all these studies, one thing is clear: The capital structure decision (or rather, the management of the capital structure over time) involves more issues than the maximization of the firm’s market value alone. In this paper, we give an overview of the different objectives and considerations that have been proposed in the literature. We make a distinction between two broadly defined situations. The first is the traditional case of the firm that strives for the maximization of the value of the shares for the current shareholders. Whenever other considerations than value maximization enter capital structure decisions, these considerations have to be instrumental to the goal of value maximization. The second case concerns the firm that explicitly chooses for more objectives than value maximization alone. This may be because the shareholders adopt a multiple stakeholders approach or because of a different ownership structure than the usual corporate structure dominating finance literature. An example of the latter is the co-operation, a legal entity which can be found in a.o. many European countries. For a discussion on why firms are facing multiple goals, we refer to Hallerbach and Spronk (2002a, 2002b).In Section 2 we will describe objectives and considerations that, directly or indirectly, clearly help to create and maintain a capital structure which is 'optimal' for the value maximizing firm. The third section describes other objectives and considerations. Some of these may have a clear negative effect on economic value, others may be neutral and in some cases the effect on economic value is not always completely clear. Section 4 shows how, for both cases, capital structure decisions can be framed as multiple criteria decision problems which can then benefit from multiple criteria decision support tools that are now widely available.2. Maximizing shareholder valueAccording to the neoclassical view on the role of the firm, the firm has one single objective: maximization of shareholder value. Shareholders possess the property rights of the firm and are thus entitled to decide what the firm should aim for. Since shareholders only have oneobjective in mind - wealth maximization - the goal of the firm is maximization of the firm's contribution to the financial wealth of its shareholders. The firm can accomplish this by investing in projects with positive net present value4. Part of shareholder value is determined by the corporate financing decision5. Two theories about the capital structure of the firm - the trade-off theory and the pecking order theory - assume shareholder wealth maximization as the one and only corporate objective. We will discuss both theories including several market value related extensions. Based on this discussion we formulate a list of criteria that is relevant for the corporate financing decision in this essentially neoclassical view.The original proposition I of Miller and Modigliani (1958) states that in a perfect capital market the equilibrium market value of a firm is independent of its capital structure, i.e. the debt-equity ratio6. If proposition I does not hold then arbitrage will take place. Investors will buy shares of the undervalued firm and sell shares of the overvalued shares in such a way that identical income streams are obtained. As investors exploit these arbitrage opportunities, the price of the overvalued shares will fall and that of the undervalued shares will rise, until both prices are equal.When corporate taxes are introduced, proposition I changes dramatically. Miller and Modigliani (1958, 1963) show that in a world with corporate tax the value of firms is a.o. a function of leverage. When interest payments become tax deductible and payments to shareholders are not, the capital structure that maximizes firm value involves a hundred percent debt financing. By increasing leverage, the payments to the government are reduced with a higher cash flow for the providers of capital as a result. The difference between the present value of the taxes paid by an unlevered firm (G u ) and an identical levered firm (G l ) is the present value of tax shields (PVTS). Figure 1 depicts the total value of an unlevered and a levered firm7. The higher leverage, the lower G l , the higher G u - G l(=PVTS). In the traditional trade-off models of optimal capital structure it is assumed that firms balance the marginal present value of interest tax shields8 against marginal direct costs of financial distress or direct bankruptcy costs.9 Additional factors can be included in this trade-off framework. Other costs than direct costs of financial distress are agency costs of debt (Jensen & Meckling, 1976). Often cited examples of agency costs of debt are the underinvestment problem (Myers, 1977)10, the asset substitution problem (Jensen & Meckling, 1976 and Galai & Masulis, 1976), the 'play for time' game by managers, the 'unexpected increase of leverage (combined with an equivalent pay out to stockholders to make to increase the impact)', the 'refusal to contribute equity capital' and the 'cash in and run' game (Brealey, Myers & Allan, 2006). These problems are caused by the difference of interest between equity and debt holders and could be seen as part of the indirect costs of financial distress. Another benefit of debt is the reduction of agency costs between managers and external equity (Jensen and Meckling, 1976, Jensen, 1986, 1989). Jensen en Meckling (1976) argue that debt, by allowing larger managerial residual claims because the need for external equity is reduced by the use of debt, increases managerial effort to work. In addition, Jensen (1986) argues that high leverage reduces free cash with less resources to waste on unprofitable investments as a result.11 The agency costs between management and external equity are often left out the trade-off theory since it assumes managers not acting on behalf of the shareholders (only)which is an assumption of the traditional trade-off theory.In Myers' (1984) and Myers and Majluf's (1984) pecking order model12 there is no optimal capital structure. Instead, because of asymmetric information and signalling problems associated with external financing13, firm's financing policies follow a hierarchy, with a preference for internal over external finance, and for debt over equity. A strict interpretation of this model suggests that firms do not aim at a target debt ratio. Instead, the debt ratio is just the cumulative result of hierarchical financing over time. (See Shyum-Sunder & Myers, 1999.) Original examples of signalling models are the models of Ross (1977) and Leland and Pyle (1977). Ross (1977) suggests that higher financial leverage can be used by managers to signal an optimistic future for the firm and that these signals cannot be mimicked by unsuccessful firms14. Leland and Pyle (1977) focus on owners instead of managers. They assume that entrepreneurs have better information on the expected cash flows than outsiders have. The inside information held by an entrepreneur can be transferred to suppliers of capital because it is in the owner's interest to invest a greater fraction of his wealth in successful projects. Thus the owner's willingness to invest in his own projects can serve as a signal of project quality. The value of the firm increases with the percentage of equity held by the entrepreneur relative to the percentage he would have held in case of a lower quality project. (Copeland, Weston & Shastri, 2005.)The stakeholder theory formulated by Grinblatt & Titman (2002)15 suggests that the way in which a firm and its non-financial stakeholders interact is an important determinant of the firm's optimal capital structure. Non-financial stakeholders are those parties other than the debt and equity holders. Non-financial stakeholders include firm's customers, employees, suppliers and the overall community in which the firm operates. These stakeholders can be hurt by a firm's financial difficulties. For example customers may receive inferior products that are difficult to service, suppliers may lose business, employees may lose jobs and the economy can be disrupted. Because of the costs they potentially bear in the event of a firm's financial distress, non-financial stakeholders will be less interested ceteris paribus in doing business with a firm having a high(er) potential for financial difficulties. This understandable reluctance to do business with a distressed firm creates a cost that can deter a firm from undertaking excessive debt financing even when lenders are willing to provide it on favorable terms (Ibid., p. 598). These considerations by non-financial stakeholders are the cause of their importance as determinant for the capital structure. This stakeholder theory could be seen as part of the trade-off theory (see Brealey, Myers and Allen, 2006, p.481, although the term 'stakeholder theory' is not mentioned) since these stakeholders influence the indirect costs of financial distress.16As the trade-off theory (excluding agency costs between managers and shareholders) and the pecking order theory, the stakeholder theory of Grinblatt and Titman (2002) assumes shareholder wealth maximization as the single corporate objective.17Based on these theories, a huge number of empirical studies have been produced. See e.g. Harris & Raviv (1991) for a systematic overview of this literature18. More recent studies are e.g. Shyum-Sunder & Myers (1999), testing the trade-off theory against the pecking order theory, Kemsley & Nissim (2002) estimating the present value of tax shield, Andrade & Kaplan (1998) estimating the costs of financial distress and Rajan & Zingales (1995) investigating the determinants of capital structure in the G-7 countries. Rajan & Zingales(1995)19 explain differences in leverage of individual firms with firm characteristics. In their study leverage is a function of tangibility of assets, market to book ratio, firm size and profitability. Barclay & Smith (1995) provide an empirical examination of the determinants of corporate debt maturity. Graham & Harvey (2001) survey 392 CFOs about a.o. capital structure. We come back to this Graham & Harvey study in Section 3.20Cross sectional studies as by Titman and Wessels (1988), Rajan & Zingales (1995) and Barclay & Smith (1995) and Wald (1999) model capital structure mainly in terms of leverage and then leverage as a function of different firm (and market) characteristics as suggested by capital structure theory21. We do the opposite. We do not analyze the effect of several firm characteristics on capital structure (c.q. leverage), but we analyze the effect of capital structure on variables that co-determine shareholder value. In several decisions, including capital structure decisions, these variables may get the role of decision criteria. Criteria which are related to the trade-off and pecking order theory are listed in Table 1. We will discuss these criteria in more detail in section 4. Figure 2 illustrates the basic idea of our approach.3. Other objectives and considerationsA lot of evidence suggests that managers act not only in the interest of the shareholders (see Myers, 2001). Neither the static trade-off theory nor the pecking order theory can fully explain differences in capital structure. Myers (2001, p.82) states that 'Yet even 40 years after the Modigliani and Miller research, our understanding of these firms22 financing choices is limited.' Results of several surveys (see Cools 1993, Graham & Harvey, 2001, Brounen et al., 2004) reveal that CFOs do not pay a lot of attention to variables relevant in these shareholder wealth maximizing theories. Given the results of empirical research, this does not come as a surprise.The survey by Graham and Harvey finds only moderate evidence for the trade-off theory. Around 70% have a flexible target or a somewhat tight target or range. Only 10% have a strict target ratio. Around 20% of the firms declare not to have an optimal or target debt-equity ratio at all.In general, the corporate tax advantage seems only moderately important in capital structure decisions. The tax advantage of debt is most important for large regulated and dividend paying firms. Further, favorable foreign tax treatment relative to the US is fairly important in issuing foreign debt decisions23. Little evidence is found that personal taxes influence the capital structure24. In general potential costs of financial distress seem not very important although credit ratings are. According to Graham and Harvey this last finding could be viewed as (an indirect) indication of concern with distress. Earnings volatility also seems to be a determinant of leverage, which is consistent with the prediction that firms reduce leverage when the probability of bankruptcy is high. Firms do not declare directly that (the present value of the expected) costs of financial distress are an important determinant of capital structure, although indirect evidence seems to exist. Graham and Harvey find little evidence that firms discipline managers by increasing leverage. Graham and Harvey explicitly note that ‘1) managers might be unwilling to admit to using debt in this manner, or 2) perhaps a low rating on this question reflects an unwillingness of firms to adopt Jensen’s solution more than a weakness in Jensen’s argument'.The most important issue affecting corporate debt decisions is management’s desire for financial flexibility (excess cash or preservation of debt capacity). Furthermore, managers arereluctant to issue common stock when they perceive the market is undervalued (most CFOs think their shares are undervalued). Because asymmetric information variables have no power to predict the issue of new debt or equity, Harvey and Graham conclude that the pecking order model is not the true model of the security choice25.The fact that neoclassical models do not (fully) explain financial behavior could be explained in several ways. First, it could be that managers do strive for creating shareholder value but at the same time also pay attention to variables other than the variables listed in Table 1. Variables of which managers think that they are (justifiably or not) relevant for creating shareholder value. Second, it could be that managers do not (only) serve the interest of the shareholders but of other stakeholders as well26. As a result, managers integrate variables that are relevant for them and or other stakeholders in the process of managing the firm's capital structure. The impact of these variables on the financing decision is not per definition negative for shareholder value. For example if ‘value of financial rewards for managers’ is one the goals that is maximized by managers – which may not be excluded – and if the rewards of managers consists of a large fraction of call options, managers could decide to increase leverage (and pay out an excess amount of cash, if any) to lever the volatility of the shares with an increase in the value of the options as a result. The increase of leverage could have a positive effect on shareholder wealth (e.g. the agency costs between equity and management could be lower) but the criterion 'value of financial rewards' could (but does not have to) be leading. Third, shareholders themselves do possibly have other goals than shareholder wealth creation alone. Fourth, managers rely on certain (different) rules of thumb or heuristics that do not harm shareholder value but can not be explained by neoclassical models either27. Fifth, the neoclassical models are not complete or not tested correctly (see e.g. Shyum-Sunder & Myers, 1999).Either way, we do expect variables other than those founded in the neoclassical property rights view are or should be included explicitly in the financing decision framework. To determine which variables should be included we probably need other views or theories of the firm than the neoclassical alone. Zingales (2000) argues that ‘…corporate finance theory, empirical research, practical implications, and policy recommendations are deeply rooted in an underlying theory of the firm.’ (Ibid., p. 1623.) Examples of attempts of new theories are 'the stakeholder theory of the firm' (see e.g. Donaldson and Preston, 1995), 'the enlightened stakeholder theory' as a response (see Jensen, 2001), 'the organizational theory' (see Myers, 1993, 2000, 2001) and the stakeholder equity model (see Soppe, 2006).We introduce an organizational balance sheet which is based on the organizational theory of Myers (1993). The intention is to offer a framework to enhance a discussion about criteria that could be relevant for the different stakeholders of the firm. In Myers' organizational theory employees (including managers) are included as stakeholders; we integrate other stakeholders as suppliers, customers and the community as well. Figure 3 presents the adjusted organizational balance sheet.Pre-tax value is the maximum value of the firm including the maximum value of the present value of all stakeholders' surplus. The present value of the stakeholders' surplus (ES plus OTS) is the present value of future costs of perks, overstaffing, above market prices for inputs (including above market wages), above market services provided to customers and the community etc.28 Depending on the theory of the firm, the pre-tax value can be distributedamong the different stakeholders following certain 'rules'. Note that what we call 'surplus' in this framework is still based on the 'property rights' principle of the firm. Second, only distributions in market values are reflected in this balance sheet. Neutral mutations are not29. Based on the results of Graham and Harvey (2001) and common sense we formulate a list of criteria or heuristics that could be integrated into the financing decision framework. Some criteria lead to neutral mutations others do not. We call these criteria 'quasi non-economic criteria'. Non-economic, because the criteria are not based on the neoclassical view. Quasi, because the relations with economic value are not always clear cut. We include criteria that lead to neutral mutations as well, because managers might have good reasons that we overlook or are relevant for other reasons than financial wealth.The broadest decision framework we propose in this paper is the one that includes both the economic and quasi non-economic variables. Figure 4 illustrates the idea. The additional quasi non-economic variables are listed in Table 2. This list is far from complete.flexibility could be relevant for at least employees and the suppliers of resources needed for these projects. As long as managers only would invest in zero net present value projects this variable would have no value effect in the organizational balance sheet. But if it influences the value of the sum of the projects undertaken this will be reflected in this balance sheet. Of course, financial flexibility is also valued for economic reasons, see Section 2 and 4.The probability of bankruptcy influences job security for employees and the duration of a 'profitable' relationship with the firm for suppliers, customers and possibly the community. For managers (and other stakeholders without diversified portfolios) the probability of default could be important. The cost of bankruptcy is for them possibly much higher than for shareholders with diversified portfolios. As with financial flexibility, the probability of default influences shareholder value as well. In Section 2 and 4 we discuss this variable in relation to shareholder value. Here the variable is relevant, because it has an effect on the wealth or other 'valued' variables of stakeholders other than equity (and debt) holders. We assume owner-managers dislike sharing control of their firms with others. For that reason, debt financing could possibly have non-economic advantages for these managers. After all, common stock carries voting rights while debt does not. Owner-managers might prefer debt over new equity to keep control over the firm. Control is relevant in the economic framework as well, see Section 2 and 4.In practice, earnings dilution is an important variable effecting the financing decision. Whether it is a neutral mutations variable or not30, the effect of the financing decision on the earnings per share is often of some importance. If a reduction in the earnings per share (EPS) is considered to be a bad signal, managers try to prevent such a reduction. Thus the effect on EPS becomes an economic variable. As long as it is a neutral mutation variable, or if it is relevant for other reasons we treat EPS as a quasi non-economic variable.The reward package could be relevant for employees. If the financing decision influences the value of this package this variable will be one of the relevant criteria for the manager. If it is possible to increase the value of this package, the influence on shareholder value is ceteris paribus negative. If the reward package motivates the manager to create extra shareholder value compared with the situation without the package, this would possibly more than offset this negative financing effect.优化资本结构：思考经济和其他价值By Marc Schauten & Jaap Spronk11。

How Important is Financial Risk?IntroductionThe financial crisis of2008has brought significant attention to the effects of financial leverage.There is no doubt that the high levels of debt financing by financial institutions and households significantly contributed to the crisis.Indeed,evidence indicates that excessive leverage orchestrated by major global banks(e.g.,through the mortgage lending and collateralized debt obligations)and the so-called“shadow banking system”may be the underlying cause of the recent economic and financial dislocation.Less obvious is the role of financial leverage among nonfinancial firms.To date,problems in the U.S.non-financial sector have been minor compared to the distress in the financial sector despite the seizing of capital markets during the crisis. For example,non-financial bankruptcies have been limited given that the economic decline is the largest since the great depression of the1930s.In fact,bankruptcy filings of non-financial firms have occurred mostly in U.S.industries(e.g.,automotive manufacturing,newspapers,and real estate)that faced fundamental economic pressures prior to the financial crisis.This surprising fact begs the question,“How important is financial risk for non-financial firms?”At the heart of this issue is the uncertainty about the determinants of total firm risk as well as components of firm risk.StudyRecent academic research in both asset pricing and corporate finance has rekindled an interest in analyzing equity price risk.A current strand of the asset pricing literature examines the finding of Campbell et al.(2001)that firm-specific(idiosyncratic)risk has tended to increase over the last40years.Other work suggests that idiosyncratic risk may be a priced risk factor(see Goyal and Santa-Clara,2003,among others).Also related to these studies is work by Pástor and Veronesi(2003)showing how investor uncertainty about firm profitability is an important determinant of idiosyncratic risk and firm value.Other research has examined the role of equity volatility in bond pricing (e.g.,Dichev,1998,Campbell,Hilscher,and Szilagyi,2008).However,much of the empirical work examining equity price risk takes the risk of assets as given or tries to explain the trend in idiosyncratic risk.In contrast,this paper takes a different tack in the investigation of equity price risk.First,we seek tounderstand the determinants of equity price risk at the firm level by considering total risk as the product of risks inherent in the firms operations(i.e.,economic or business risks)and risks associated with financing the firms operations(i.e.,financial risks). Second,we attempt to assess the relative importance of economic and financial risks and the implications for financial policy.Early research by Modigliani and Miller(1958)suggests that financial policy may be largely irrelevant for firm value because investors can replicate many financial decisions by the firm at a low cost(i.e.,via homemade leverage)and well-functioning capital markets should be able to distinguish between financial and economic distress. Nonetheless,financial policies,such as adding debt to the capital structure,can magnify the risk of equity.In contrast,recent research on corporate risk management suggests that firms may also be able to reduce risks and increase value with financial policies such as hedging with financial derivatives.However,this research is often motivated by substantial deadweight costs associated with financial distress or other market imperfections associated with financial leverage.Empirical research provides conflicting accounts of how costly financial distress can be for a typical publicly traded firm.We attempt to directly address the roles of economic and financial risk by examining determinants of total firm risk.In our analysis we utilize a large sample of non-financial firms in the United States.Our goal of identifying the most important determinants of equity price risk(volatility)relies on viewing financial policy as transforming asset volatility into equity volatility via financial leverage.Thus, throughout the paper,we consider financial leverage as the wedge between asset volatility and equity volatility.For example,in a static setting,debt provides financial leverage that magnifies operating cash flow volatility.Because financial policy is determined by owners(and managers),we are careful to examine the effects of firms’asset and operating characteristics on financial policy.Specifically,we examine a variety of characteristics suggested by previous research and,as clearly as possible, distinguish between those associated with the operations of the company(i.e.factors determining economic risk)and those associated with financing the firm(i.e.factors determining financial risk).We then allow economic risk to be a determinant of financial policy in the structural framework of Leland and Toft(1996),or alternatively, in a reduced form model of financial leverage.An advantage of the structural modelapproach is that we are able to account for both the possibility of financial and operating implications of some factors(e.g.,dividends),as well as the endogenous nature of the bankruptcy decision and financial policy in general.Our proxy for firm risk is the volatility of common stock returns derived from calculating the standard deviation of daily equity returns.Our proxies for economic risk are designed to capture the essential characteristics of the firms’operations and assets that determine the cash flow generating process for the firm.For example,firm size and age provide measures of line of-business maturity;tangible assets(plant,property,and equipment)serve as a proxy for the‘hardness’of a firm’s assets;capital expenditures measure capital intensity as well as growth potential.Operating profitability and operating profit volatility serve as measures of the timeliness and riskiness of cash flows. To understand how financial factors affect firm risk,we examine total debt,debt maturity,dividend payouts,and holdings of cash and short-term investments.The primary result of our analysis is surprising:factors determining economic risk for a typical company explain the vast majority of the variation in equity volatility. Correspondingly,measures of implied financial leverage are much lower than observed debt ratios.Specifically,in our sample covering1964-2008average actual net financial (market)leverage is about1.50compared to our estimates of between1.03and1.11 (depending on model specification and estimation technique).This suggests that firms may undertake other financial policies to manage financial risk and thus lower effective leverage to nearly negligible levels.These policies might include dynamically adjusting financial variables such as debt levels,debt maturity,or cash holdings(see,for example, Acharya,Almeida,and Campello,2007).In addition,many firms also utilize explicit financial risk management techniques such as the use of financial derivatives, contractual arrangements with investors(e.g.lines of credit,call provisions in debt contracts,or contingencies in supplier contracts),special purpose vehicles(SPVs),or other alternative risk transfer techniques.The effects of our economic risk factors on equity volatility are generally highly statistically significant,with predicted signs.In addition,the magnitudes of the effects are substantial.We find that volatility of equity decreases with the size and age of the firm.This is intuitive since large and mature firms typically have more stable lines of business,which should be reflected in the volatility of equity returns.Equity volatility tends to decrease with capital expenditures though the effect is weak.Consistent withthe predictions of Pástor and Veronesi(2003),we find that firms with higher profitability and lower profit volatility have lower equity volatility.This suggests that companies with higher and more stable operating cash flows are less likely to go bankrupt,and therefore are potentially less risky.Among economic risk variables,the effects of firm size,profit volatility,and dividend policy on equity volatility stand out. Unlike some previous studies,our careful treatment of the endogeneity of financial policy confirms that leverage increases total firm risk.Otherwise,financial risk factors are not reliably related to total risk.Given the large literature on financial policy,it is no surprise that financial variables are,at least in part,determined by the economic risks firms take.However, some of the specific findings are unexpected.For example,in a simple model of capital structure,dividend payouts should increase financial leverage since they represent an outflow of cash from the firm(i.e.,increase net debt).We find that dividends are associated with lower risk.This suggests that paying dividends is not as much a product of financial policy as a characteristic of a firm’s operations(e.g.,a mature company with limited growth opportunities).We also estimate how sensitivities to different risk factors have changed over time.Our results indicate that most relations are fairly stable. One exception is firm age which prior to1983tends to be positively related to risk and has since been consistently negatively related to risk.This is related to findings by Brown and Kapadia(2007)that recent trends in idiosyncratic risk are related to stock listings by younger and riskier firms.Perhaps the most interesting result from our analysis is that our measures of implied financial leverage have declined over the last30years at the same time that measures of equity price risk(such as idiosyncratic risk)appear to have been increasing. In fact,measures of implied financial leverage from our structural model settle near1.0 (i.e.,no leverage)by the end of our sample.There are several possible reasons for this. First,total debt ratios for non-financial firms have declined steadily over the last30 years,so our measure of implied leverage should also decline.Second,firms have significantly increased cash holdings,so measures of net debt(debt minus cash and short-term investments)have also declined.Third,the composition of publicly traded firms has changed with more risky(especially technology-oriented)firms becoming publicly listed.These firms tend to have less debt in their capital structure.Fourth,as mentioned above,firms can undertake a variety of financial risk management activities.To the extent that these activities have increased over the last few decades,firms will have become less exposed to financial risk factors.We conduct some additional tests to provide a reality check of our results.First,we repeat our analysis with a reduced form model that imposes minimum structural rigidity on our estimation and find very similar results.This indicates that our results are unlikely to be driven by model misspecification.We also compare our results with trends in aggregate debt levels for all U.S.non-financial firms and find evidence consistent with our conclusions.Finally,we look at characteristics of publicly traded non-financial firms that file for bankruptcy around the last three recessions and find evidence suggesting that these firms are increasingly being affected by economic distress as opposed to financial distress.ConclusionIn short,our results suggest that,as a practical matter,residual financial risk is now relatively unimportant for the typical U.S.firm.This raises questions about the level of expected financial distress costs since the probability of financial distress is likely to be lower than commonly thought for most companies.For example,our results suggest that estimates of the level of systematic risk in bond pricing may be biased if they do not take into account the trend in implied financial leverage(e.g.,Dichev,1998).Our results also bring into question the appropriateness of financial models used to estimate default probabilities,since financial policies that may be difficult to observe appear to significantly reduce stly,our results imply that the fundamental risks born by shareholders are primarily related to underlying economic risks which should lead to a relatively efficient allocation of capital.Some readers may be tempted to interpret our results as indicating that financial risk does not matter.This is not the proper interpretation.Instead,our results suggest that firms are able to manage financial risk so that the resulting exposure to shareholders is low compared to economic risks.Of course,financial risk is important to firms that choose to take on such risks either through high debt levels or a lack of risk management.In contrast,our study suggests that the typical non-financial firm chooses not to take these risks.In short,gross financial risk may be important,but firms can manage it.This contrasts with fundamental economic and business risks that are more difficult(or undesirable)to hedge because they represent the mechanism by which the firm earns economic profits.References[1]Shyam,Sunder.Theory Accounting and Control[J].An Innternational Theory on PublishingComPany.2005[2]Ogryezak,W,Ruszeznski,A.Rom Stomchastic Dominance to Mean-Risk Models:Semide-Viations as Risk Measures[J].European Journal of Operational Research.[3]Borowski,D.M.,and P.J.Elmer.An Expert System Approach to Financial Analysis:the Case of S&L Bankruptcy[J].Financial Management,Autumn.2004;[4]Casey, C.and ing Operating Cash Flow Data to Predict Financial Distress:Some Extensions[J].Journal of Accounting Research,Spring.2005;[5]John M.Mulvey,HafizeGErkan.Applying CVaR for decentralized risk management of financialcompanies[J].Journal of Banking&Finanee.2006;[6]Altman.Credit Rating:Methodologies,Rationale and Default Risk[M]．Risk Books,London.译文：财务风险的重要性引言2008年的金融危机对金融杠杆的作用产生重大影响。

外文翻译原文The analysis of company's capital and evaluation of factors, which influencecreation of the optimal capital structureMaterial Source: Author: Svetlana Saksonova This is the primary information gathering stage, which is necessary for the effective planning afterwards. At this stage the objective of the financial manager is to determine the existing tendencies of the development of capital structure, as well as its volume, and their influence on the financial stability of the company. Efficiency of the existing financing arrangements can also be considered at this stage. This stage can conditionally be split into three parts –one more concerned with qualitative characteristics and the two other ones concerned with quantifying the results of the analysis.The first (qualitative) stage involves comparing the dynamics of the total capital and its ingredients compared to the dynamics of production and sales, assessing the proportion of the borrowed and equity and the history of this proportion. Borrowed capital is further split into long-term and short-term financial obligations, overdue financial obligations are discovered (if they exist) and the causes for the inabilities of a company to meet financial commitments are analyzed.The second (more quantitative) stage of the analysis uses the system of coefficients of financial stability of a company to asses the capital structure.This stage utilizes well known financial indicators, such as different liquidity ratios.The purpose of these coefficients of financial stability is to show the degree of the possible risk of bankruptcy of a company that is related to the use of borrowed financial resources. Obviously, if the company does not use any borrowed funds the risk of bankruptcy related to the usage of borrowed funds is equal to zero. As the proportion of the borrowed capital grows, the risk of bankruptcy is also growing, because of the increase in company’s liabilities.Therefore, financial coefficients are mostly of interest for the existing andpotential creditors of the company.As a rule, debts to the ordinary creditors are paid, after the payment of taxes, wages and repayment of claims of secured creditors, who provided loans secured by collateral, such as office space or production machinery. The assessment of company’s liquidity helps to make a judgment of the extent to which the ordinary (unsecured) creditor is protected.Another group of financial coefficients helps to determine the dependency of the company on the borrowed capital (how does the company use financial leverage) and therefore to compare the positions of the creditors and owners of the company. The concept of financial leverage states that the successful use of the borrowed capital leads to the increased profits for the owners of the company, since they have the rights to profits obtained by the use of the borrowed capital, which leads to the increase in company’s equity.However, one has to keep in mind that any loans and interest on those loans have to be repaid even in case, if the profits obtained are not enough to cover these payments. The owners of the company always have to cover the claims of the creditors, which can negatively influence the equity of the company. The concept of leverage is therefore a double-edged sword. The positive and negative influence of the financial leverage grows in proportion to the volume of the borrowed capital that the company uses. The risk of the creditor, therefore, also grows in tandem with the risk of the owners. The coefficients in this group include:• Debt to assets ratio is the primary and the most utilized evaluation, which can be made, while evaluating the risk of the creditor. This indicator is calculated by the following formula:Debt to assets ratio = Total Liabilities / Total AssetsThis indicator is calculated for a point in time, but not for a period. It calculates the share of the “other money” in the total amount of claims on the assets of the company. The higher this coefficient, the larger is the probable risk for the creditor. Let us assume, for example, that the results of the computation for the last three years of business operation of Company X are presented (along with several other financial coefficients that will be discussed below) in Table 1.This data indicates that around 50 % of the financial resources at company’s disposal come from the borrowed resources. Naturally, a question arises: whether this is a positive or negative development? This question doesnot have a unanimous answer. Everything depends on the preferences of company’s owners and its management, most importantly, on their attitude to risk. Managers, who are risk averse, will try to achieve lower levels of this indicator and will attempt attracting additional finance by issuing new shares. One the other hand, managers and owners who are risk neutral and have higher tolerance for risk, will attempt to boost the share of borrowed funds in assets, aiming to exploit the positive aspects of financial leverage and increase profits.If a company has a well-developed and positive credit history, creditors will gladly lend money, in spite of the large value of the debt to asset ratio. In practice, this indicator can reach levels as high as 90 %.I f the company is not considered a “reliable borrower” (not necessarily due to a failure to repay obligations, but, for example, due to the fact that the company is newly created), then the debt to asset ratio of 50 % can be considered critical for the company, in a sense, that after that level, the prospective of obtaining additional loan financing is significantly decreased.However, one cannot simply conclude that the coefficient described above is a perfectly correct evaluation of the company’s abilities to repay its debts. The reason for this is that the asset book value (used to calculate the coefficient) does not always correspond to the real economic value of those assets or even the value, for which they can be sold quickly. Apart from that, this coefficient does not provide any insights on the possible changes in profits of the company, which can influence the payments of interest and the repayment of the principal. • Debt to capital ratio is an indicator that is computed based on the proportion between the size of the long-term debt and the size of the capital. This indicator presents the analyst witha clearer picture of risk due to the usage of borrowed funds. In this calculation, capital is defined as the total amount of company’s capital (includi ng common and preferred stock as well as long-term debt), minus the short term liabilities. The coefficient can be computed according to the following formula:Debts to capital ratio = Long-term Liabilities /Total capitalBy definition, capital in this case includes the amount of long-term claims on company’s assets by the creditors as well as the owners but does not include current (short-term) claims. The total amount of those corresponds to what can be called net assets”, if no adjustments have been mad e, such as excluding deferred taxes from the calculation. For example, if deferred taxes have notbeen excluded a calculation of this indicator for the company leads to the results that are summarized in the second line of Table 1.Debt to capital ratio tends to get lower over time, due to the fact that part of the long-term financial liabilities is usually repaid over time. This coefficient gets a large share of attention, because a lot of contracts on lending, whether it’s the private company or a public corporation being financed, contain certain conditions that regulate the maximum share of company’s borrowed capital, which is expressed in terms of the debt to capital ratio.The same characteristics, but in a different ratio, are represented by the indicator of the debt to equity ratio. This indicator is directly related to the previous indicator and can be calculated, with the help of the previous indicator. Consider the following calculation:Let D be the amount of the long-term debt in the company, E – the size of company‘s equity, then DC –debt to capital ratio can be calculated by the following formula:DC = D / (D+E).If we now let, DE to denote debt to equity ratio, such as DE = D/E, then by simple algebraic manipulation, we obtain that:DE = DC / (1 – DC).The value of the debt to equity ratio for Company X is also summarized in Table 1.Using this indicator, one can easily interpret the condition of capital structure. A potential creditor, for example, can clearly see that on January 1st, 2005, company X long term debts are around 22 % of the size of the equity. If the company X has sufficiently high liquidity (that is the ability to repay its short term obligations), then it can be granted additional credit. Note, that if one only had the access to the first ratio considered (debt to assets ratio), it would not have been possible to make that conclusion, because there long-term debtswere not separated from the short-term ones.A number of other ratios can be considered, for example, the previous calculation of the debt to equity ratio can be modified to include current liabilities (short term debts) divided by the total equity of the company. This coefficient represents a yet another way to indicate relative shares in claims of creditors and owners and is also used to determine the dependency of the company on borrowed capital.If the values of this coefficient are significantly higher than the values of the previously described coefficients, then there’s a large share of the short term liabilities in the overall capital structure.Another possible coefficient used in financial ratio analysis is capital to asset ratio, which indicates the share of company’s equity in its assets. The existence of such a variety of coefficients serves to underscore how carefully the rules of financial analysis and conditions that regulate credit access are developed. However, coefficients only serve to provide the first overall idea of the risks and rewards that stem from the usage of the borrowed capital.On the third (also quantitatively oriented) stage of the analysis, the objective of the analyst is to assess the efficiency of capital utilization as a whole, as well as the efficiency of utilizing separate sources of capital. This stage also envisages a set of useful quantitative indicators, which can be calculated and analyzed. These indicators can include:• Capital intensity of production. This indicator aims to show the amount of capital necessary to produce one unit of firm’s output. It is mostly dependent on the natur e of firm’s output (for example, clothes vs. electronics manufacturing). Information about capital intensity is vital for planning firm’s capital requirements in the future.• Capital turnover period.This coefficient is the number of days, in which the company turns over capital that is capital, generates the projected amount of profit. This coefficient can be computed for equity, borrowed capital as well as the total capital of the company. Since every turnover of capital means generating a certain amount of profit, the lower the company manages to make capital turnover period, the more efficient is capital utilization.• Return on equity. This indicator characterizes the amount of earnings generated by a single unit of equity and is one of the most important pieces of information, necessary for decisions on optimizing capital structure.• Return on investment (total capital).This indicator is somewhat equivalent。

资本结构外文文献Optimal Capital Structure: Reflections on economic and other values By Marc Schauten & Jaap Spronk11. IntroductionDespite a vast literature on the capital structure of the firm (see Harris and Raviv, 1991, Graham and Harvey, 2001, Brav et al., 2005, for overviews) there still is a big gap between theory and practice (see e.g. Cools, 1993, Tempelaar, 1991, Boot & Cools, 1997). Starting with the seminal work by Modigliani & Miller (1958, 1963), much attention has been paid to the optimality of c apital structure from the shareholders’ point of view.Over the last few decades studies have been produced on the effectof other stakeholders’ interests on capital structure. Well-known examples are the interests of customers who receive product or service guarantees from the company (see e.g. Grinblatt & Titman, 2002). Another area that has received considerable attention is the relation between managerial incentives and capital structure (Ibid.). Furthermore, the issue of corporate control2 (see Jensen & Ruback, 1983) and, related,the issue of corporate governance3 (see Shleifer & Vishney, 1997), receive a lion’s part of the more recent academic attention for capital structure decisions.From all these studies, one thing is clear: The capital structure decision (or rather, the management of the capital structure over time)involves more issues than the maximization of the firm’s market value alone. In this paper, we give an overview of the different objectivesand considerations that have been proposed in the literature. We make a distinction between two broadly defined situations. The first is the traditional case of the firm that strives for the maximization of the value of the shares for the current shareholders. Whenever other considerations than value maximization enter capital structure decisions, these considerations have to be instrumental to the goal of value maximization. The second case concerns the firm that explicitly chooses for more objectives than value maximization alone. This may be because the shareholders adopt a multiple stakeholders approach or because of a different ownership structure than the usual corporate structure dominating finance literature. An example of the latter is the co-operation, a legal entity which can be found in a.o. many European countries. For a discussion on why firms are facing multiple goals, we refer to Hallerbach and Spronk (2002a, 2002b).In Section 2 we will describe objectives and considerations that, directly or indirectly, clearly help to create and maintain a capital structure which is 'optimal' for the value maximizing firm. The third section describes other objectives and considerations. Some of these may have a clear negative effect on economic value, others may be neutraland in some cases the effect on economic value is not always completely clear. Section 4 shows how, for both cases, capital structure decisions can be framed as multiple criteria decision problems which can thenbenefit from multiple criteria decision support tools that are now widely available.2. Maximizing shareholder valueAccording to the neoclassical view on the role of the firm, the firm has one single objective: maximization of shareholder value. Shareholders possess the property rights of the firm and are thus entitled to decide what the firm should aim for. Since shareholders only have oneobjective in mind - wealth maximization - the goal of the firm is maximization of the firm's contribution to the financial wealth of its shareholders. The firm can accomplish this by investing in projects with positive net present value4. Part of shareholder value is determined by the corporate financing decision5. Two theories about the capital structure of the firm - the trade-off theory and the pecking order theory - assume shareholder wealth maximization as the one and only corporate objective. We will discuss both theories including several market value related extensions. Based on this discussion we formulate a list of criteria that is relevant for the corporate financing decision in this essentially neoclassical view.The original proposition I of Miller and Modigliani (1958) states that in a perfect capital market the equilibrium market value of a firm is independent of its capital structure, i.e. the debt-equity ratio6. If proposition I does not hold then arbitrage will take place. Investors willbuy shares of the undervalued firm and sell shares of the overvalued shares in such a way that identical income streams are obtained. As investors exploit these arbitrage opportunities, the price of the overvalued shares will fall and that of the undervalued shares will rise, until both prices are equal.When corporate taxes are introduced, proposition I changes dramatically. Miller and Modigliani (1958, 1963) show that in a world with corporate tax the value of firms is a.o. a function of leverage. When interest payments become tax deductible and payments toshareholders are not, the capital structure that maximizes firm value involves a hundred percent debt financing. By increasing leverage, the payments to the government are reduced with a higher cash flow for the providers of capital as a result. The difference between the present value of the taxes paid by an unlevered firm (G) and an identicallevered firm (G) is ulthe present value of tax shields (PVTS). Figure 1 depicts the total value of an unlevered and a levered firm7. The higher leverage, thelower G, the higher G- G(=PVTS). lu lIn the traditional trade-off models of optimal capital structure itis assumed that firms balance the marginal present value of interest tax shields8 against marginal direct costs of financial distress or direct bankruptcy costs.9 Additional factors can be included in this trade-off framework. Other costs than direct costs of financial distress are agency costs of debt(Jensen & Meckling, 1976). Often cited examples of agency costs of debt are the underinvestment problem (Myers, 1977)10, the asset substitution problem (Jensen & Meckling, 1976 and Galai & Masulis, 1976), the 'play for time' game by managers, the 'unexpected increase of leverage (combined with an equivalent pay out to stockholders to make to increase the impact)', the 'refusal to contribute equity capital' andthe 'cash in and run' game (Brealey, Myers & Allan, 2006). These problems are caused by the difference of interest between equity anddebt holders and could be seen as part of the indirect costs offinancial distress. Anotherbenefit of debt is the reduction of agency costs between managersand external equity (Jensen and Meckling, 1976, Jensen, 1986, 1989). Jensen en Meckling (1976) argue that debt, by allowing larger managerial residual claims because the need for external equity is reduced by the use of debt, increases managerial effort to work. In addition, Jensen (1986) argues that high leverage reduces free cash with less resourcesto waste on unprofitable investments as a result.11 The agency costs between management and external equity are often left out the trade-off theory since it assumes managers not acting on behalf of theshareholders (only)which is an assumption of the traditional trade-off theory.In Myers' (1984) and Myers and Majluf's (1984) pecking order model12 there is no optimal capital structure. Instead, because of asymmetric information and signalling problems associated with external financing13,firm's financing policies follow a hierarchy, with a preference for internal over external finance, and for debt over equity. A strict interpretation of this model suggests that firms do not aim at a target debt ratio. Instead, the debt ratio is just the cumulative result of hierarchical financing over time. (See Shyum-Sunder & Myers, 1999.) Original examples of signalling models are the models of Ross (1977) and Leland and Pyle (1977). Ross (1977) suggests that higher financial leverage can be used by managers to signal an optimistic future for the firm and that these signals cannot be mimicked by unsuccessful firms14. Leland and Pyle (1977) focus on owners instead of managers. They assume that entrepreneurs have better information on the expected cash flows than outsiders have. The inside information held by an entrepreneur can be transferred to suppliers of capital because it is in the owner's interest to invest a greater fraction of his wealth in successful projects. Thus the owner's willingness to invest in his own projects can serve as a signal of project quality. The value of the firm increases with the percentage of equity held by the entrepreneur relative to the percentage he would have held in case of a lower quality project. (Copeland, Weston & Shastri, 2005.)The stakeholder theory formulated by Grinblatt & Titman (2002)15 suggests that the way in which a firm and its non-financial stakeholders interact is an important determinant of thefirm's optimal capital structure. Non-financial stakeholders are those parties other than the debt and equity holders. Non-financialstakeholders include firm's customers, employees, suppliers and the overall community in which the firm operates. These stakeholders can be hurt by a firm's financial difficulties. For example customers may receive inferior products that are difficult to service, suppliers may lose business, employees may lose jobs and the economy can be disrupted. Because of the costs they potentially bear in the event of a firm's financial distress, non-financial stakeholders will be less interested ceteris paribus in doing business with a firm having a high(er)potential for financial difficulties. This understandable reluctance to do business with a distressed firm creates a cost that can deter a firm from undertaking excessive debt financing even when lenders are willing to provide it on favorable terms (Ibid., p. 598). These considerationsby non-financial stakeholders are the cause of their importance as determinant for the capital structure. This stakeholder theory could be seen as part of the trade-off theory (see Brealey, Myers and Allen, 2006, p.481, although the term 'stakeholder theory' is not mentioned) since these stakeholders influence the indirect costs of financial distress.16 As the trade-off theory (excluding agency costs between managers and shareholders) and the pecking order theory, the stakeholder theory of Grinblatt and Titman (2002) assumes shareholder wealth maximization as the single corporate objective.17Based on these theories, a huge number of empirical studies havebeen produced. See e.g. Harris & Raviv (1991) for a systematic overview of this literature18. More recent studies are e.g. Shyum-Sunder & Myers(1999), testing the trade-off theory against the pecking order theory, Kemsley & Nissim (2002) estimating the present value of tax shield, Andrade & Kaplan (1998) estimating the costs of financial distress and Rajan & Zingales (1995) investigating the determinants of capitalstructure in the G-7 countries. Rajan & Zingales(1995)19 explain differences in leverage of individual firms withfirm characteristics. In their study leverage is a function oftangibility of assets, market to book ratio, firm size and profitability. Barclay & Smith (1995) provide an empirical examination of the determinants of corporate debt maturity. Graham & Harvey (2001) survey392 CFOs about a.o. capital structure. We come back to this Graham & Harvey study in Section 3.20Cross sectional studies as by Titman and Wessels (1988), Rajan & Zingales (1995) and Barclay & Smith (1995) and Wald (1999) model capital structure mainly in terms of leverage and then leverage as a function of different firm (and market) characteristics as suggested by capital structure theory21. We do the opposite. We do not analyze the effect of several firm characteristics on capital structure (c.q. leverage), butwe analyze the effect of capital structure on variables that co-determine shareholder value. In several decisions, including capital structure decisions, these variables may get the role of decisioncriteria. Criteria which are related to the trade-off and pecking order theory are listed in Table 1. We will discuss these criteria in moredetail in section 4. Figure 2 illustrates the basic idea of our approach.3. Other objectives and considerationsA lot of evidence suggests that managers act not only in theinterest of the shareholders (see Myers, 2001). Neither the statictrade-off theory nor the pecking order theory can fully explain differences in capital structure. Myers (2001, p.82) states that 'Yet even 40 years after the Modigliani and Miller research, our understanding of these firms22 financing choices is limited.' Results of several surveys (see Cools 1993, Graham & Harvey, 2001, Brounen et al., 2004) reveal that CFOs do not pay a lot of attention to variables relevant in these shareholder wealth maximizing theories. Given the results of empirical research, this does not come as a surprise.The survey by Graham and Harvey finds only moderate evidence for the trade-off theory. Around 70% have a flexible target or a somewhat tight target or range. Only 10% have a strict target ratio. Around 20% of the firms declare not to have an optimal or target debt-equity ratio at all.In general, the corporate tax advantage seems only moderately important in capital structure decisions. The tax advantage of debt is most important for large regulated and dividend paying firms. Further, favorable foreign tax treatment relative to the US is fairly importantin issuing foreign debt decisions23. Little evidence is found that personal taxes influence the capital structure24. In general potential costs of financial distress seem not very important although credit ratings are. According to Graham and Harvey this last finding could be viewed as (an indirect) indication of concern with distress.Earnings volatility also seems to be a determinant of leverage, which is consistent with the prediction that firms reduce leverage when the probability of bankruptcy is high. Firms do not declare directly that (the present value of the expected) costs of financial distress are an important determinant of capital structure, although indirect evidence seems to exist. Graham and Harvey find little evidence that firms discipline managers by increasing leverage. Graham and Harvey explicitly note that ‘1) managers mightbe unwilling to admit to using debt in this manner, or 2) perhaps a low rating on this question reflects an unwillingness of firms to adopt Jensen’s solution more than a weakness in Jensen’sargument'.The most important issue affecting corporate debt decisions is management’s desire forfinancial flexibility (excess cash or preservation of debt capacity). Furthermore, managers arereluctant to issue common stock when they perceive the market is undervalued (most CFOs think their shares are undervalued). Because asymmetric information variables have no power to predict the issue of new debt or equity, Harvey and Graham conclude that the pecking order model is not the true model of the security choice25.The fact that neoclassical models do not (fully) explain financial behavior could be explained in several ways. First, it could be that managers do strive for creating shareholder value but at the same timealso pay attention to variables other than the variables listed in Table 1. Variables of which managers think that they are (justifiably or not) relevant for creating shareholder value. Second, it could be that managers do not (only) serve the interest of the shareholders but of other stakeholders as well26. As a result, managers integrate variables that are relevant for them and or other stakeholders in the process of managing the firm's capital structure. The impact of these variables on the financing decision is not per definition negative for shareholder value. For example if ‘value of financial rewards for managers’ is one the goalsthat is maximized by managers – which may not be excluded – and if the rewards of managersconsists of a large fraction of call options, managers could decide to increase leverage (and pay out an excess amount of cash, if any) to lever the volatility of the shares with an increase in the value of the options as a result. The increase of leverage could have a positive effect on shareholder wealth (e.g. the agency costs between equity and management could be lower) but the criterion 'value of financial rewards' could (but does not have to) be leading. Third, shareholders themselves do possibly have other goals than shareholder wealth creation alone. Fourth, managers rely on certain (different) rules of thumb or heuristics that do not harm shareholder value but can not be explained by neoclassical models either27. Fifth, the neoclassical models are not complete or not tested correctly (see e.g. Shyum-Sunder & Myers, 1999).Either way, we do expect variables other than those founded in the neoclassical property rights view are or should be included explicitlyin the financing decision framework. To determine which variables should be included we probably need other views or theories ofthe firm than the neoclassical alone. Zingales (2000) argues that ‘…corporate finance theory,empirical research, practical implications, and policy recommendations are deeply rooted in an underlying theory of the firm.’ (Ibid., p. 1623.) Examples of attempts of new theories are 'the stakeholder theory of the firm' (see e.g. Donaldson and Preston, 1995), 'the enlightened stakeholder theory' as a response (see Jensen, 2001), 'the organizational theory' (see Myers, 1993, 2000, 2001) and the stakeholder equity model (see Soppe, 2006).We introduce an organizational balance sheet which is based on the organizational theory of Myers (1993). The intention is to offer a framework to enhance a discussion about criteria that could be relevant for the different stakeholders of the firm. In Myers' organizational theory employees (including managers) are included as stakeholders; we integrate other stakeholders as suppliers, customers and the community as well. Figure 3 presents the adjusted organizational balance sheet.Pre-tax value is the maximum value of the firm including the maximum value of the present value of all stakeholders' surplus. The present value of the stakeholders' surplus (ES plus OTS) is the present value of future costs of perks, overstaffing, above market prices for inputs(including above market wages), above market services provided to customers and the community etc.28 Depending on the theory of the firm, the pre-tax value can be distributedamong the different stakeholders following certain 'rules'. Notethat what we call 'surplus' in this framework is still based on the'property rights' principle of the firm. Second, only distributions in market values are reflected in this balance sheet. Neutral mutations are not29. Based on the results of Graham and Harvey (2001) and common sense we formulate a list of criteria or heuristics that could be integrated into the financing decision framework. Some criteria lead to neutral mutations others do not. We call these criteria 'quasi non-economic criteria'. Non-economic, because the criteria are not based on the neoclassical view. Quasi, because the relations with economic value are not always clear cut. We include criteria that lead to neutral mutations as well, because managers might have good reasons that we overlook or are relevant for other reasons than financial wealth.The broadest decision framework we propose in this paper is the one that includes both the economic and quasi non-economic variables. Figure 4 illustrates the idea. The additional quasi non-economic variables are listed in Table 2. This list is far from complete.flexibility could be relevant for at least employees and the suppliers of resources needed for these projects. As long as managers only would invest in zero net present value projects this variable would have no value effect in the organizational balance sheet. But if itinfluences the value of the sum of the projects undertaken this will be reflected in this balance sheet. Of course, financial flexibility is also valued for economic reasons, see Section 2 and 4. The probability of bankruptcy influences job security for employees and the duration of a 'profitable' relationship with the firm for suppliers, customers and possibly the community. For managers (and other stakeholders without diversified portfolios) the probability of default could be important. The cost of bankruptcy is for them possibly much higher than for shareholders with diversified portfolios. As with financial flexibility, the probability of default influences shareholder value as well. In Section 2 and 4 we discuss this variable in relation to shareholder value. Here the variable is relevant, because it has an effect on the wealth or other 'valued' variables of stakeholders other than equity (and debt) holders. We assume owner-managers dislike sharing control of their firms with others. For that reason, debt financing could possibly have non-economic advantages for these managers. After all, common stock carries voting rights while debt does not. Owner-managers might prefer debt over new equity to keep control over the firm. Control is relevant in the economic framework as well, see Section 2 and 4.In practice, earnings dilution is an important variable effectingthe financing decision. Whether it is a neutral mutations variable or not30, the effect of the financing decision on the earnings per share is often of some importance. If a reduction in the earnings per share (EPS) is considered to be a bad signal, managers try to prevent such areduction. Thus the effect on EPS becomes an economic variable. As long as it is a neutral mutation variable, or if it is relevant for other reasons we treat EPS as a quasi non-economic variable.The reward package could be relevant for employees. If the financing decision influences the value of this package this variable will be one of the relevant criteria for the manager. If it is possible to increase the value of this package, the influence on shareholder value is ceteris paribus negative. If the reward package motivates the manager to create extra shareholder value compared with the situation without the package, this would possibly more than offset this negative financing effect.优化资本结构:思考经济和其他价值By Marc Schauten & Jaap Spronk11。

外文翻译--公司的股权结构、公司治理和资本结构决策——来自加纳的实证研究本科毕业论文(设计)文翻译外原文:Ownership structure, corporate governance and capital structuredecisions of firmsEmpirical evidence from Ghana1. IntroductionThe relevance of capital structure to firm value remains fairly established following the seminal article by Modigliani and Miller, 1958 (Grabowski and Mueller, 1972; McCabe, 1979; Anderson and Reeb, 2003). Several theories including the pecking order theory, the free cash flow, the capital signaling, the trade-off, and market timing theories (windows of opportunities) and the fact that capital structure is voluntarily chosen by managers (Zwiebel, 1996) have been propounded to explain the choice of capital structure. Also, considerable research attention has been paid to the impact of agency costs on corporate financing since Jensen and Meckling (1976) published their paper.Crutchley and Hansen (1989) maintain that managers’ choice of stock ownershipin the firm, the firm’s mixture of outside debt and equity financing, and dividends aremeant to reduce the costs of agency conflicts. Bajaj et al. (1998) suggest that ownership is positively correlated with various measures of the debt-equity ratio (leverage), implying that ownership structure has a correlation with financial structure of firms (Kim and Sorensen, 1986; Mehran, 1992; Brailsford et al., 2002). Friend and Lang (1988) find that debt ratio is negatively related to managerial ownership. Brailsford et al. (2002) suggest that the relationship between managerial share ownership and leverage may in fact be inverted u-shaped.In addition, Berglo?f (1990) suggests that in countries in which firms are typically closely held, debt finance plays a more prominent role than in countries characterized by more dispersed ownership structures suggesting the impact of insider system of corporate governance on financing structure of firms. Thomsen and Pedersen (2000) report empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis that the identity of large owners –family, bank, and institutional investors – has important implications for financialstructure. In particular, they show that a more risk averse or a more patient entrepreneur issues less debt and more equity. Given that insider system of corporate governance is practiced among listed companies in Ghana (Bokpin, 2008), this study seeks to document the impact of ownership structure on corporate financing, a mark departure from Abor (2007).Claessens et al. (2002) maintain that better corporate governance frameworks benefit firms through greater access to financing, lower cost of capital, better performance and more favourable treatment of all stakeholders. Corporate governance affects the development andfunctioning of capital markets and exerts a strong influence on resource allocation. Corporate governance correlates with the financing decisions and the capital structure of firms (Graham and Harvey, 2001; Litov, 2005; Abor, 2007). However, management incentives that include stock options introduces issues for the alignment of managerial and shareholder interests. The question is which way does managerial ownership affect capital structure decisions of firms? How does the form of governance affect the choice of financing? The empirical evidence observed in the literature is inconclusive with much focus on developed capital markets.Unlike Abor (2007), this present study considers a much broader corporate governance index of the impact of ownership structure, managerial share ownership and other corporate governance variables on capital structure decisions of firms on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE). Earlier studies on the GSE have failed to consider the impact of these factors on corporate financing decisions of firms (Aboagye, 1996; Boateng, 2004; Abor and Biekpe, 2005; Abor, 2007) implying that, these studies invariably ignores a gamut of other relevant variables that are central to understandingthe relationship among ownership structure, corporate governance,and firms’financing decisions from a developing country perspective Aside, the study uses more recent data from 2002 to 2007 whilst employing a panel data analysis. The rest of the paper is divided into four sections. Section 2 considers the literature review; Section 3 discusses data used in the study and also details the model specifications used for the empirical analysis. Section 4 contains the discussion of the results and Section 5 summarizes and concludes the paper.2. Literature review2.1 Ownership structure and capital structureThe relationship between ownership and capital structures has attracted a considerable research attention over the last couple of decades. Jensen and Meckling (1976) defined ownership structure in terms of capital contributions. Thus, the authors saw ownership structure to comprise of inside equity (managers), outside equity and debt, thus proposing an extension of the form of ownership structure beyond the debt-holder and equity-holder view. Zheka (2005) unlike the above authors constructs ownership structure using variables including proportion of foreign share ownership, managerial ownership percentage, largest institutional shareholder ownership, largest individual ownership, and government share ownership. Bajaj et al. (1998) suggest that ownership is positively correlated with various measures of the debt-equity ratio (leverage), implying that ownership structure has a correlation with financial structure of firms.Friend and Lang (1988) find that debt ratio is negatively related to managerial ownership. Brailsford et al. (2002) suggest that the relationship between managerial share ownership and leverage may in fact be inverted u-shaped. Thus, debt first increases with an increase in managerial share ownership; but beyond a critical level of managerial share ownership debt may fall because there could be only a few agency related benefits by increasing debt further as the interests of managers and owners get very strongly aligned. Pindado and de la Torre (2005) conclude that insider ownership does not affect debt when the interest of managers and owners are aligned. Jensen and Meckling (1976), in relating capital structure to the level ofcompensation for CEOs came out with the findings that there is a positive correlation between the two and this was supported by Leland and Pyle (1977) and Berger et al. (1997) who assert the claim that the correlation between CEO compensation and capital structure is a positive one. However, Friend and Lang (1988), Friend and Hasbrouck (1988) and Wen et al. (2002) found a negative correlation between CEO compensation and the financial leverage of firms.Morck et al. (1988) argue that family ownership may give rise to greater leverage than in the case of disperse ownership, because of the non-dilution of entrenchment effects. Mishra and McConaughy (1999) document empirical evidence that funding family-controlled firms use less debt than non-funding family controlled firms. Thomsen and Pedersen (2000) report empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis that theidentity of large owners – family, bank, and institutional investors –hasimportant implications for financial structure. In particular, they show that a more risk averse or a more patient entrepreneur issues less debt and more equity. Anderson and Reeb (2003) further argue that family ownership reduces the cost of debt financing.Berglo?f (1990) suggests that in countries in which firms aretypically closely held, debt finance plays a more prominent role than in countries characterized by more dispersed ownership structures. Bergeret al. (1997) found less leverage in firms with no major stakeholder. Lefort and Walker (2000) conclude that groups are effective in obtaining external finance and that there are no significant differences in the capital structure of groups of different sizes. Brailsford et al. (2002) suggest that firms with external block holders have low-debt ratios consistent with Friend and Lang (1988), who earlier on had indicatedthat firms with large non-managerial investors have significantly higher debt ratios than those without non-managerial investors. Cheng et al. (2005) also indicates that the leverage increases as ownership concentration increases following rights issuance. Driffield et al. (2005) argue that, higher ownership concentration is associated with higher leverage irrespective of whether a firm is family owned or not. Pindado and de la Torre (2005) suggest that there is a positive relationship between ownership concentration and debt thus, all things being equal, ownership concentration encourages debt financing. However,they find the positive effect of ownership concentration on debt tobe smaller in cases of high free cash flow. They also find that ownership concentration does not moderate the relationship betweeninsider ownership and debt; in contrast, the relationship between ownership concentration and debt is affected by insider ownership. Thus, the debt increments promoted by outside owners are larger when managers are entrenched.2.2 Corporate governance and capital structureCorporate governance correlates with the financing decisions and the capital structure of firms (Graham and Harvey, 2001; Litov, 2005). Jensen (1986) postulates that large debt is associated with larger boards. Though Berger et al. (1997) concludes on a later date thatlarger board size is associated with low leverage; several other studies conducted in recent times have refuted this conclusion. Wen et al. (2002) posit that larger board size is associated with higher debt, either to improve the firm’s value or because the larger si ze prevents the board from reaching a consensus on decisions, indicating a weak corporate governance system. Anderson et al. (2004) further indicate that larger board size results in lower cost of debt, which serves as a motivationfor using more debt, and this has been confirmed by Abor (2007) who concludes that capital structure positively correlates with board size, among Ghanaian listed firms.In relation to the presence of external directors on the board, Wenet al. (2002) conclude that the presence of external directors on theboard leads to lower leverage, used by the firm, due to their superior control. However, Abor (2007) concludes that capital structurepositively correlates with Board composition among Ghanaian listed firms. And this is consistent with Jensen (1986) and Berger et al. (1997) who had earlier on concluded that firms with higher percentage of external directors utilize more debt as compared to equity.Berger et al. (1997) found less leverage in firms run by CEOs with long tenure and this was confirmed by Wen et al. (2002), who concludethat the tenure of CEO is negatively related to leverage, to reduce the pressures associate with leverage. Kayhan (2003) finds that entrenched managers achieve lower leverage through retaining moreprofits and issuing equity more opportunistically. Further, Litov (2005) supports this claim that entrenched managers adopt lower levelsof debt. Abor (2007) also asserts that entrenched CEOs employ lower debt in order to reduce the performance pressures associated with high-debt capital. However, Bertrand and Mullainathan (2003) refuted this fact by showing in their study that entrenched managers “enjoy the quiet life” by engaging in risk-reducing projects, indicating a positiverelationship between managerial entrenchment and leverage.Fosberg (2004) relates that firms with a two-tier leadershipstructure have high-debt/equity ratios. This was supported by Abor (2007), who concludes that capital structure positively correlates with CEO duality, which shows that firms on the GSE use more debt as the CEO duality increases.3. Research methodologyIn order to gain the maximum possible observations, pooled panel crossed-section regression data are used. Panel data analysis involves analysis with a spatial and temporal dimension and facilitates identification of effects that are simply not detectable in pure cross-section or pure time series studies. Thus, degrees of freedom are increased and collinearity among the explanatory variables is reduced and the efficiency of economic estimates is improved. The study is therefore based on the official data published by the cross-sectional firms for the various years covering a period from 2002 to 2007.Analytical frameworkThe general form of the panel regression model is stated as:'ititity=α+Xβ+μ i=1,…,N;t=1,…,Twhere subscript i and t represent the firm and time, respectively. In this case, i represents the cross-section dimension and t represents the time-series component. Y is the dependable variable which is a measure of capital structure. αis a scalar, βisitK *1 and Xit is the observation on K explanatory variables. We assume that theμfollow a one-way error component model:itiitμ=μ+νiwhereμ is time-invariant and accounts for any unobservableitindividual-specific effect that is not included in the regression model. The termνrepresents the remaining disturbance, and varies with the individual firms and time.Source: Godfred A. Bokpin and Anastacia C. Arko, 2009. “Ownership structure,corporate governance and capital structure decisions of firms Empirical evidence from Ghana” . Studies in Economics and Finance . Vol.26 No. 4.pp. 246-256.译文:公司的股权结构、公司治理和资本结构决策——来自加纳的实证研究一、引言继利亚和米勒1958年开创性的文章(格拉博夫斯基和米勒，1972年; 迈克，1979年;安德森和力波，2003年)之后，公司价值与资本结构相关性依然得到较大的认可。

优化资本结构：思考经济和其他价值---资本结构外文文献翻译西安工业大学北方信息工程学院毕业设计论文外文翻译资料系别管理信息系专业财务管理班级 B080510 姓名郭静学号 B08051019导师王化中Optimal Capital Structure: Reflections oneconomic and other valuesBy Marc Schauten & Jaap Spronk11. IntroductionDespite a vast literature on the capital structure of the firm see Harris and Raviv, 1991, Graham and Harvey, 2001, Brav et al., 2005, for overviews there still is a big gap between theory and practice see e.g. Cools, 1993, Tempelaar, 1991, Boot & Cools, 1997. Starting with the seminal work by Modigliani & Miller 1958, 1963, much attention has been paid to the optimality of capital structure from the shareholders’ point of view Over the last few decades studies have been produced on the effect of other stakeholders’ inte rests on capital structure. Well-knownexamples are the interests of customers who receive product or service guarantees from the company see e.g. Grinblatt & Titman, 2002. Another area that has received considerable attention is the relationbetween managerial incentives and capital structure Ibid.. Furthermore, the issueof corporate control2 see Jensen & Ruback, 1983 and, related, the issue of corporate governance3 see Shleifer & Vishney, 1997, receive a lion’s part of the more recent academic attentio n for capital structure decisions From all these studies, one thing is clear: The capital structure decision or rather, the management of the capital structure over time involves more issues than the imization of the firm’s market value alone. In this paper,we give an overview of the different objectives and considerations that have been proposed in the literature. We make a distinction between two broadly defined situations. The first is the traditional case of the firm that strives for the imization of the value of the shares for the current shareholders. Whenever other considerations than value imization enter capital structure decisions, these considerations have to be instrumental to the goal of value imization. The second case concerns the firm that explicitly chooses for more objectives than valueimization alone. This may be because the shareholders adopt a multiple stakeholders approach or because of a different ownership structure than the usual corporate structure dominating finance literature. An example of the latter is the co-operation, a legal entity which can be found in a.o. many European countries. For a discussion on why firms are facing multiple goals, we refer to Hallerbach and Spronk 2002a, 2002b In Section 2 we will describe objectives and considerations that, directlyor indirectly, clearly help to create and maintain a capital structure which is 'optimal'for the value imizing firm. The third section describes other objectives and considerations. Some of these may have a clear negative effect on economic value, others may be neutral and in some cases the effect on economic value is not always completely clear. Section 4 shows how, for both cases, capital structure decisions can be framed as multiple criteria decision problems which can then benefit from multiple criteria decision support tools that are now widely available2. imizing shareholder valueAccording to the neoclassical view on the role of the firm, the firm has one single objective: imization of shareholder value. Shareholders possess the property rights of the firm and are thus entitled to decide what the firm should aim for. Since shareholders only have one objective in mind - wealth imization - the goal of the firm is imization of the firm's contribution to the financial wealth of its shareholders. Thefirm can accomplish this by investing in projects with positive net present value4. Part of shareholder value is determined by the corporate financing decision5. Two theories about the capital structure of thefirm - the trade-off theory and the pecking order theory - assume shareholder wealth imization as the one and only corporate objective. We will discuss both theories including several market value related extensions. Based on this discussion we formulate a list of criteriathat is relevant for the corporate financing decision in thisessentially neoclassical viewThe original proposition I of Miller and Modigliani 1958 states that in aperfect capital market the equilibrium market value of a firm is independent of its capital structure, i.e. the debt-equity ratio6. If proposition I does not hold then arbitrage will take place. Investors will buy shares of the undervalued firm and sell shares of the overvalued shares in such a way that identical income streams are obtained. As investors exploit these arbitrage opportunities, the price of the overvalued shares will fall and that of the undervalued shares will rise, until both prices are equalWhen corporate taxes are introduced, proposition I changes dramatically. Miller and Modigliani 1958, 1963 show that in a world with corporate tax the value of firms is a.o. a function of leverage. When interest payments become tax deductible and payments to shareholders are not, the capital structure that imizes firm value involves a hundred percent debt financing. By increasing leverage, the payments to the government are reduced with a higher cash flow for the providers of capital as a result. Thedifference between the present value of the taxes paid by an unlevered firm Gu and an identical levered firm Gl is the present value of tax shields PVTS. Figure 1 depicts the total value of an unlevered and a levered firm7. The higher leverage, the lower Gl, the higher Gu - Gl PVTSIn the traditional trade-off models of optimal capital structure it is assumed that firms balance the marginal present value of interest taxshields8 against marginal direct costs of financial distress or direct bankruptcy costs.9 Additional factors can be included in this trade-off framework. Other costs than direct costs of financial distress are agency costs of debt Jensen & Meckling, 1976. Often cited examples of agency costs of debt are the underinvestment problem Myers, 197710, the asset substitution problem Jensen & Meckling, 1976 and Galai & Masulis, 1976, the 'play for time' game by managers, the 'unexpected increase of leverage combined with an equivalent pay out to stockholders to make to increase the impact', the 'refusal to contribute equity capital' and the 'cash in and run' game Brealey, Myers & Allan, 2006. These problems are caused by the difference of interest between equity and debt holders and could be seen as part of the indirect costs of financial distress. Another benefit of debt is the reduction of agency costs between managers and external equity Jensen and Meckling, 1976, Jensen, 1986, 1989. Jensen en Meckling 1976 argue that debt, by allowing larger managerial residual claims because the need for external equity is reduced by the use of debt, increases managerial effort to work. In addition, Jensen 1986 argues that high leverage reduces free cash with less resources to waste on unprofitable investments as a result.11 The agency costs between management and external equity are often left out the trade-off theory since it assumes managers not acting on behalf of the shareholders only which is an assumption of the traditional trade-off theoryIn Myers' 1984 and Myers and Majluf's 1984 pecking ordermodel12 there is no optimal capital structure. Instead, because of asymmetric information andsignalling problems associated with external financing13, firm's financing policies follow a hierarchy, with a preference for internal over external finance, and for debt over equity. A strict interpretation of this model suggests that firms do not aim at a target debt ratio. Instead, the debt ratio is just the cumulative result of hierarchical financing over time. See Shyum-Sunder & Myers, 1999. Original examples of signalling models are the models of Ross 1977 and Leland and Pyle 1977. Ross 1977 suggests that higher financial leverage can be used by managers to signal an optimistic future for the firm and that these signals cannot be mimicked by unsuccessful firms14. Leland and Pyle 1977 focus on owners instead of managers. They assume that entrepreneurs have better information on the expected cash flows than outsiders have. The inside information held by an entrepreneur can be transferred to suppliers of capital because it is in the owner's interest to invest a greater fraction of his wealth in successful projects. Thus the owner's willingness to invest in his own projects can serve as a signal of project quality. The value of the firm increases with the percentage of equity held by the entrepreneur relative to the percentage he would have held in case of a lower quality project. Copeland, Weston & Shastri, 2005.The stakeholder theory formulated by Grinblatt & Titman 200215 suggests that the way in which a firm and its non-financial stakeholders interact is an important determinant of the firm's optimal capital structure. Non-financial stakeholders are those parties other than the debt and equity holders. Non-financial stakeholders include firm's customers, employees, suppliers and the overall community in which the firm operates. These stakeholders can be hurt by a firm's financial difficulties. For example customers may receive inferior products that are difficult to service, suppliers may lose business, employees may lose jobs and the economy can be disrupted. Because of the costs they potentially bear in the event of a firm's financial distress, non-financial stakeholders will be less interested ceteris paribus in doing business with a firm having a higher potential for financialdifficulties. This understandable reluctance to do business with a distressed firm creates a cost that can deter a firm from undertaking excessive debt financing even when lenders are willing to provide it on favorable terms Ibid., p. 598. These considerations by non-financial stakeholders are the cause of their importance as determinant for the capital structure. This stakeholder theory could be seen as part of the trade-off theory see Brealey, Myers and Allen, 2006, p.481, although the term 'stakeholder theory' is not mentioned since these stakeholders influence the indirect costs of financial distress.16 As the trade-off theory excluding agency costs between managers and shareholders and the pecking order theory, the stakeholder theory of Grinblatt and Titman2002 assumes shareholder wealth imization as the single corporate objective.17Based on these theories, a huge number of empirical studies have been produced. See e.g. Harris & Raviv 1991 for a systematic overview of this literature18. More recent studies are e.g. Shyum-Sunder & Myers 1999, testing the trade-off theory against the pecking order theory, Kemsley & Nissim 2002 estimating the present value of tax shield, Andrade & Kaplan 1998 estimating the costs of financial distress and Rajan & Zingales 1995 investigating the determinants of capitalstructure in the G-7 countries. Rajan & Zingales 199519 explain differences in leverage of individual firms with firm characteristics. In their study leverage is a function of tangibility of assets, market to book ratio, firm size and profitability. Barclay & Smith 1995 provide an empirical examination of the determinants of corporate debt maturity. Graham & Harvey 2001 survey 392 CFOs about a.o. capital structure. We come back to this Graham & Harvey study in Section 3.20Cross sectional studies as by Titman and Wessels 1988, Rajan & Zingales 1995 and Barclay & Smith 1995 and Wald 1999 model capital structure mainly in terms of leverage and then leverage as a function of different firm and market characteristics as suggested by capital structure theory21. We do the opposite. We do not analyze the effect of several firm characteristics on capital structure c.q. leverage, but we analyze the effect of capital structure on variables that co-determine shareholder value. In several decisions, including capital structuredecisions, these variables may get the role of decision criteria. Criteria which are related to the trade-off and pecking order theory are listed in Table 1. We will discuss these criteria in more detail in section 4. Figure 2 illustrates the basic idea of our approach 3. Other objectives and considerationsA lot of evidence suggests that managers act not only in theinterest of the shareholders see Myers, 2001. Neither the static trade-off theory nor the pecking order theory can fully explain differences in capital structure. Myers 2001, p.82 states that 'Yet even 40 years after the Modigliani and Miller research, our understanding of these firms22 financing choices is limited.' Results of several surveys see Cools 1993, Graham & Harvey, 2001, Brounen et al., 2004 reveal that CFOs do not pay a lot of attention to variables relevant in these shareholder wealth imizing theories. Given the results of empirical research, this does not come as a surpriseThe survey by Graham and Harvey finds only moderate evidence for the trade-off theory. Around 70% have a flexible target or a somewhat tight target or range. Only 10% have a strict target ratio.Around 20% of the firms declare not to have an optimal or targetdebt-equity ratio at allIn general, the corporate tax advantage seems only moderately important in capital structure decisions. The tax advantage of debt is most important for large regulated and dividend paying firms. Further, favorable foreign tax treatment relative to the US is fairlyimportant in issuing foreign debt decisions23. Little evidence is found that personal taxes influence the capital structure24. In general potential costs of financial distress seem not very important although credit ratings are. According to Graham and Harvey this last finding could be viewed as an indirect indication of concern with distress. Earnings volatility also seems to be a determinant of leverage, which is consistent with the prediction that firms reduce leverage when the probability of bankruptcy is high. Firms do not declare directly that the present value of the expected costs of financial distress are an important determinant of capital structure, although indirect evidence seems to exist. Graham and Harvey find little evidence that firms discipline managers by increasing leverage. Graham and Harvey explicitly note that ‘1 managers might be unwilling to admit to using debt in this manner, or 2 perhaps a low rating on this question reflects an unwillingness of firms to adopt Jensen’s solution more than a weakness in Jensen’s argument'The most i mportant issue affecting corporate debt decisions is management’s desire for financial flexibility excess cash or preservation of debt capacity. Furthermore, managers are reluctant to issue common stock when they perceive the market is undervalued most CFOs think their shares are undervalued. Because asymmetric information variables have no power to predict the issue of new debt or equity, Harvey and Graham conclude that the pecking order model is not the true model of the security choice25Thefact that neoclassical models do not fully explain financialbehavior could be explained in several ways. First, it could be that managers do strive for creating shareholder value but at the same time also pay attention to variables other than the variables listed in Table 1. Variables of which managers think that they are justifiably or not relevant for creating shareholder value. Second, it could be that managersdo not only serve the interest of the shareholders but of other stakeholders as well26. As a result, managers integrate variables that are relevant for them and or other stakeholders in the process of managing the firm's capital structure. The impact of these variables on the financing decision is not per definition negative for shareholder value. For exampl e if ‘value of financial rewards for managers’ is one the goals that is imized by managers ? which may not be excluded ? andif the rewards of managers consists of a large fraction of call options, managers could decide to increase leverage and pay out an excess amount of cash, if any to lever the volatility of the shares with an increasein the value of the options as a result. The increase of leverage could have a positive effect on shareholder wealth e.g. the agency costs between equity and management could be lower but the criterion 'value of financial rewards' could but does not have to be leading. Third, shareholders themselves do possibly have other goals than shareholder wealth creation alone. Fourth, managers rely on certain different rules of thumb or heuristics that donot harm shareholder value but can not be explained by neoclassical models either27. Fifth, the neoclassical models are not complete or not tested correctly see e.g. Shyum-Sunder & Myers, 1999 Either way, we do expect variables other than those founded in the neoclassical property rights view are or should be included explicitly in the financing decision framework. To determine which variables should be included we probably need other views or theories of the firm than the neoclassical alone. Zingales 2000 argues that ‘…corporate finance theory, empirical research, practical implications, and policy recommendations are deeply rooted in an underlying theory of the firm.’ Ibid., p. 1623. Examples of attempts of new theories are 'the stakeholder theory of the firm' see e.g. Donaldson and Preston, 1995, 'the enlightened stakeholder theory' as a response see Jensen, 2001, 'the organizational theory' see Myers, 1993, 2000, 2001 and the stakeholder equity model see Soppe, 2006Weintroduce an organizational balance sheet which is based on the organizational theory of Myers 1993. The intention is to offer a framework to enhance a discussion about criteria that could be relevant for the different stakeholders of the firm. In Myers' organizational theoryemployees。