本科毕业论文（设计）
外文翻译
原文：
The Determinants of Capital Structure:Evidence from Chinese Listed
Companies
One early extension was to allow for the incidence of taxation and financial distress. Since the late 1970s, there have been two new strands of research which originate more from the theory of the firm: the …pecking order‟theory and the …trade-off‟ theory. The pecking order theory argues that firms have a preference of issuing financing instruments due to adverse selection problems (Myers and Majluf, 1984). T he theory suggests that the financial manager tends to use internal capital as the first choice, then issue debt, and equity will only be considered as the last resort as issuance of equity can be perceived by the market as a signal of a poor future for the investment. In contrast, the trade-offtheory emphasizes that an optimal capital structure can be achieved by the trade-offof the various benefits of debt and equity.
2.1. The pecking order theory
The pecking order theory is based on the information asymmetries between the firm‟s managers and the outside investors. Ross (1977) was the first to address the function of debt as a signalling mechanism when there are information asymmetries between the firm‟s management and its investors.He argued that management has better knowledge of the firm than the investors, and that management will try to avoid debt when the firm is performing poorly for fear that any debt default due to poor cash flow will result in their job loss. The information asymmetry may also explain why existing investors may not favor new equity financing, as new investors may require higher returns to compensate for the risks of their investment thus diluting the returns to existing investors. Myers and Majluf (1984) later developed their so-called pecking
order theory of financing: i.e.that capital structure will be driven by firms‟ desire to finance new investments preferably through the use of internal funds, then with low-risk debt, and with new equity only as a last resort. In their theory, there is no optimal capital structure that maximiz es the firm value. The financial managers issue debt or equity purely according to the costs of capital. Subsequent empirical studies provide mixed evidence. Helwege and Liang (1996) found no empirical evidence for such a pecking order. Booth et al. (2001) found evidence supporting the theory in their 10-country empirical study. Frank and Goyal (2003) tested the pecking order theory on a broad cross-section of publicly traded American firms for 1971 to 1998, and concluded that the theory was not supported by the evidence. Whilst large firms exhibited some aspects of pecking order behavior, the evidence was not robust to the inclusion of conventional leverage factors, nor to the analysis of evidence from the 1990s.
2.2. The trade-off theory
The trade-offtheory argues that there is an optimal capital structure that maximiz es the firm value, but the trade-off comes in various forms.
2.2.1. TaxShield Benefits and the Financial Distress Cost of Debt
One of the crucial assumptions of the MM (1958) model was that there is no taxation. Later work by Modigliani and Miller (1963), and Miller (1977) add tax effects into the original framework. An implication of this newer work was that firms should finance their projects completely through d ebt in order to maximize corporate value. Clearly this contradicts reality in that debt constitutes only a fraction of firms‟ total capital. Subsequent theoretical work seeks an optimal capital structure which results from a trade-offbetween the benefits of tax shield of debt and the costs of financial distress of debt.According to this line of theory, the benefits of debt arise from its tax exemption, which implies that a higher debt ratio will increase the firm‟s value. But the benefits can be offset by costs o f financial distress, which may destroy the value of the firm. Thus the optimal capital structure is determined by the trade-off
between the tax-free benefits of debt and the distress costs of debt - see Figure 1. De Angelo and Masulis (1980), Ross (1985) and Leland (1994) have shown that, in the presence of taxation, it is advantageous for a firm with safe, tangible assets and plenty of taxable income to take a high debt-equity ratio to avoid high tax payments. For a firm with poorer performance and more intangi ble assets, it is better to rely on equity financing.
One problem with the theories based on consideration of the tax-shield benefits is that they cannot explain why capital structures vary across firms that are subject to the same taxation rates. Empirical evidence from the United States (Copeland and Weston, 1992) shows that the capital structure of corporations did not change much after corporate income tax came into existence. In Australia, where there is no dual income taxation at all, capital structure is roughly the same as in other economies (Rajan and Zingales, 1995). Booth et al. (2001) found that the tax benefits vary in developing countries and play no role in the determination of capital structure choice.
2.2.2. Agency Theory and Capital Structure
Even if markets are perfect and there is no tax impact, agency theory suggests that the appropriate mix of debt and equity is still an important matter for corporate governance. In general, debt claims provide the holders with a fixed repayment schedule but little in the way of rights to control the company, as long as the repayment schedule (and sometimes certain other terms) is met. However, creditors can have a strong influence over a company if it gets in financial distress but, even if a company is financia lly sound, creditors can influence whether it can obtain additional funding for proposed new projects. For example, a bank that has loaned a company the money for factory expansion can make it easy or hard for the company to borrow more money for a new office building.
Conversely, equity claims – in particular, common stock – give shareholders the right to vote for Boards of Directors and on other important corporate issues such as major mergers or plans that would dispose of substantial portions of the compan y‟s assets. Shareholders are also entitled to receive dividends or other distributions
whenever the company pays them or, if the company is liquidated, to receive the net assets of the company after paying all debts and any securities, such as preferred stock, that rank ahead of common shares. These two features, the right to vote and the right to receive dividends and other distributions, are the defining characteristics of common shares.
Jensen and Meckling (1976) identify two potential sources of conflict.On the one hand, conflicts between debt-holders and equity-holders arise because the debt contract gives equity-holders an incentive to invest sub-optimally. More specifically the debt contract provides that, if an investment yields large returns well above the face value of the debt, equity-holders will capture most of the gain. If, however, the investment fails, debt-holders bear the consequences because of limited liability. As a result, equity-holders may benefit from …going for broke‟; i.e. investing in very risky projects, even if they are value-decreasing. Such investments result in a decrease in the value of the debt. The loss in value of the equity from the poor investment can be more than offset by the gain in equity value captured at the expense of debt-holders. Equity-holders correctly anticipate equity-holders‟ future behavior. In this case, the debt-holders receive less for the debt than they otherwise would. Thus, the cost of the incentive to invest in value-decreasing projects created by debt is borne by the equity-holders who issue the debt. This effect, generally called the asset substitution effect, is the agency cost of debt financing.
On the other hand, conflicts between shareholders and managers arise because managers hold less than 100% of the residual claim. Consequently, they do not bear the entire cost of these activities. Managers may thus invest less effort in managing the firm‟s resources, and may be able to transfer firm resources to their own personal benefit, for example through …empire-building‟ or by consuming …perquisites‟ such as corporate jets, luxurious offices etc.
The manager bears the entire cost of refraining from these activities, but captures only a fraction of the gain. As a result, managers overindulge in these pursuits relative to the level that wou ld maximize firm value. This in effciency is reduced the larger is
the fraction of the firm‟s equity owned by the manager. Holding constant the manager‟s absolute investment in the firm, an increase in the debt ratio of the firm increases the manager‟s share of the equity and mitigates the loss from the conflict between the manager and shareholders. Moreover, as pointed out by Jensen (1986), since debt commits the firm to pay out cash, it reduces the amount of …free‟ cash available to managers to engage in the types of pursuits mentioned above. This mitigation of the conflicts between managers and equity-holders constitutes a benefit of debt financing.
A number of implications follow from this analysis. First, one wouldexpect bond contracts to include features that attempt to prevent asset substitution, such as interest coverage requirements, prohibitions against investments in new unrelated lines of business, etc. Second, industries in which the opportunities for asset substitution are more limited will have higher debt levels ceteris paribus. Thus, for example, the theory predicts that regulated public utilities, banks, and firms in mature industries with few growth opportunities will be more highly leveraged. Third, it is optimal for firms with slow or even negative growth, and that have large free cash in flows from operations, to have more debt. Large free cash flows without good investment prospects create the resources to consume perquisites, build empires, overpay subordinates etc. Increasing debt reduces the amount of …free cash‟ and increases the manager‟s fractional ownership of the residual claim. According to Jensen (1986) industries with these characteristics include steel, chemicals, brewing, tobacco, television and radio broadcasting, and wood and paper products. The theory predicts that these industries should be characterized by high leverage ratios.
2.2.
3. Corporate Control
One limitation of agency theory is that it assumes the agency problem can be mitigated, or eliminated, by a comprehensive contract which postulates all the future contingencies and states the circumstances in which the manager should take what action, as criticised by Hart (1995a, 1995b). But such a comprehensive contract would be very costly to design and/or execute(Williamson, 1988). It may well be optimal to leave the contract incomplete, and to assign the equity-holders the residual control
rights beyond contractual control rights which are assigned to the debt-holders (Aghion and Bolton, 1992). This incomplete contract approach regards equity and debt as contingent state‟ securities. When the firm is financially healthy, it is the equity-holders who have control. But a default of debt repayment will trigger the transfer of control to the debt-holders. Li quidation of the firm and/or managerial sackings are then inevitable. Thus management is constrained by the requirement to ensure a smooth repayment of debt (see table I).
Two related models share a common concern with conflicts between shareholders and managers, though they diff er in the specific ways in which the conflicts arise and in the role of debt. Harris and Raviv (1990) postulate that managers always want to continue the firm‟s current operations, even if liquidation of the firm would be the preferred option for investors. But debt can force managers to liquidate firms, because default may well trigger the managers‟ job loss. The optimal capital structure is achieved by trading off improved liquidation decisions against higher investigation costs. A different model by Stulz (1990) is based on the assumption that managers always want to invest available funds so as to expand the size of the firm, even though investors might prefer higher dividend payouts. The optimal capital structure in Stulz‟s model is achi eved by trading off the benefits of debt in preventing investment in bad projects with the costs of debt in preventing investment in good projects. Therefore, unlike in the Modigliani-Miller world, changing the capital structure of the firm changes the alloc ation of power between the insiders and the outside investors, and thus almost surely changes the firm‟s investment policy (La Porta et al., 2000).
Source: Jian Chen and Roger Strange, 2006.“conomic Change and Restructuring”. Volume 38, January. pp:11-35
译文：
资本结构决定因素—以中国企业为案例
为应对税收与财务困境的金融压力，早期理论作了相应的扩展。
自20世纪70年代后期以来，已经有两个新股研究来源于更多更好的企业理论:啄食理论和“平衡”的理论。
次序的理论认为，公司发行的偏好于融资工具逆向选择问题(梅尔斯（1984)。
该理论表明,财务经理往往第一选择内部资本作为使用资金,然后再发行债务,发行股票只会被认为是作为在市场环境下筹集资金最后的手段。
相比之下，平衡理论强调一个最优资本结构可以达到的平衡各种负债和权益。
2.1啄食顺序理论
次序的理论基础是公司的管理者和外面的投资者之间的信息不对称。
罗斯(1977年)是第一个强调债务功能的，总有一个信息令公司的管理及其投资者机制之间的信息不对称。
他主张，管理公司会更好地了解投资者, 当公司表现差，由于糟糕的现金流量，管理因为担心任何债务违约会使他们的工作损失会设法避免债务。
信息不对称也解释了为什么已有的投资者可能不会支持新股权融资，因为新投资者可以要求获得更高的回报来抵消投资的风险的回报,这样对现有的投资者可能会稀释回报额。
梅尔斯和麦杰耶夫(1984)后来发展他们所谓的融资顺序理论融资指出:如果希望得到最优资本结构，公司就会通过使用内部基金满足新的投资的渴望，然后是发行低风险的债券，而发行新的股票只是作为最后的选择。
在他们的理论里，没有最优资本结构的企业是无法实现价值最大化的。
财务经理发行债券或者股票完全根据资本的成本。
随后的实证研究提供了证据。
海韦杰和梁(1996)没有发现实证支持这样一个有序理论。
然而埠斯在他们的十所公司的研究中找到了实证依据。
弗兰克和戈雅（2003) 通过1971至1998年上市美国公司的调查检测了融资顺序理论,并得出结论:理论并不被实证所证明。
当大公司的某些方面表现出顺序行为，啄食的顺序证据都不包含稳健,传统杠杆因素，也不支持20世纪90年代以后实证分析。
2.2平衡理论
平衡理论认为,肯定有种最优资本结构能够最大限度地实现企业价值最大化，但是平衡理论有很多种形态。
2.2.1税赋保护的好处和财务危机的借贷成本
MM(1958)模型的非常重要的一个假设，是并没有税收。
莫迪里亚尼和米勒(1963) (1977年)在以后的工作里将税收问题增加到原有的框架。
这个新工作的启示是,公司应完全通过债务融资项目实现最大化公司价值。
很明显地这样的矛盾所欠实际构成只有其中一小部分企业的总资本。
随后的理论工从抵税效应和资本成本的平衡中寻找最优资本结构。
根据这条理论，从其产生的债务利益免税，这意味着高负债比率会增加公司的价值。
但该福利可以抵消成本,金融衰退可能损害企业的价值。
因此,最优资本结构是由免税利益之间的平衡,负债和资本危机的成本债务。
迪·安杰罗和麦苏里斯(1980)，罗斯(1985)与他们(1994)表明，税收的存在，对于一个拥有安全有形资产以及高的应纳税所得额的公司为避免高纳税而采取高债务产权比率是有利的。
对于一个绩效低下,拥有更多的无形资产的公司来说，最好是依赖股权融资。
基于考虑抵税效应的这一理论的一个问题是，在遵循统一税率的情况下，为什么公司的资本结构各地不尽相同。
来自美国的实徵证据(科普兰和韦斯顿，1992)表明，公司所得税形成后企业资本结构并没有改变多少。
在澳大利亚,那里没有双所得课税，在其他经济体(拉詹辛格嘉，1995)资本结构状况基本持平。
布兹(2001)发现租税减免在发展中国家有差异，在决定资本结构的选择中基本没有影响。
2.2.2代理理论和资本结构
即使在完全市场和没有税务影响下，代理理论表明,负债和权益适当搭配，仍然是一种重要的公司治理结构。
一般来说，只要还款时间(有时某些条款)没有到期。
债权人享受固定回报的时间,但是没有控制公司的权利。
然而，如果公司存在财务危机，债权人对公司有很大的影响力，但即使公司实力雄厚，债权人对于公司能否为新提议的方案计划获得额外的资金产生大的影响。
例如，一个银行为一个公司的扩张贷款了，对于公司能否建立新的办公楼就能有决定性的决定权利。
相反地：股东权益，特别是普通股票的权利——给予普通股持股股东这样的权利：股东大会投票表决权以及其他的公司处理权像公司合并以及部分资产处理等问题。
股东们还可以得到股息或其它形式的资金分红，如果公司清盘关闭，在公司支付所有债务和其他有效证券如优先股（优于普通股分配权）后享受净资产。
这两个特权、选举权和分红权的权利和其他分配权，是普通股股东最典型的权利。
杰森和麦克林(1976)确定了两种冲突的潜在来源。
一方面，由于债务合同让权益人激励投资，债权人同权益所有者的冲突上升。
更多特定的债务合同提供,如果一个投资收益大回报远远超过面值的债券，股东权益者会捕获大部分的利益。
然而，如果投资失败，因为债券人的有限责任，就要承担失败的后果。
因此，权益所有者或许可以得到“失败”后的利益，即投资很有风险的项目,即使是它们的获利情况在下降。
这样的投资导致债务价值的下降。
权益所有者在失败投资上的损失不能抵消债务成本及其收益。
权益所有者正确预测的今后的经济行为。
在这种情况下，比起其它的债务，债权人获得就少一些。
因此,由于债务刺激引起的权益所有者对于获利下降的投资行为所要承担的损失就由发行债务的权益所有者来承担。
这种效果，一般称为资产替代效应,是代理成本的债务融资。
另一方面,股东与管理者之间的冲突出现是由于管理者拥有少于100%的剩余索取权。
因此，他们不承担这些行为的全部成本。
因而经理不会对公司的资源管理投入跟多，却将公司资源转向个人利益，例如通过建造'帝国大厦'或‘特殊待遇'的高消费，像公司的喷气式飞机、豪华办公室等。
经理承担从避免这些行为的全部费用，但仅能获得一小部分的收益。
因此,经理需要在承担这些与公司价值有关的行为成本的基础上，还要实现公司价值最大化。
这种低效率随着公司经理所持股权份额的扩大而降低。
经理在公司所持有的绝对投资，管理者的股权份额随着公司的负债比率的增加而增加，减轻了经理和股东之间的冲突的成本。
况且，杰森指出（1986）,因为债权人要求还现金, 它减少了管理者提供自由现金用于上述高消费的追求行为。
管理者和股权持有人之间趋于更加和谐，这种情况有利于债务融资。
杰森和迈克林（1976，第117页）认为，最佳的资本结构可以通过平衡债务代理成本和债务利益之间的关系得到
大量实证结果证实了这一分析。
首先，人们期待债券合同中包括试图阻止资产替代的功能，如利息覆盖需求，禁止投资与新业务不相关的商业等。
其次，行业中的资产替代的机会较有限，在其他条件不变的情况下会有较高的债务水平。
因此，举例来说，这个理论预言适用于公用事业，银行，在一些成熟的产业中缺少发展机遇的企业杠杆作用更明显。
第三，对于那些日常经营活动中有较大的现金流量，同时想要获得更多的债务的企业来说，低增长率或者甚至负增长率更加
有利。
没有良好的投资前景大的现金流量为高消费提供可能性，如高物质消费、额外的支出等。
日益增加的债务减少了'自由现金'数额，增加了经理的剩余索取权的部分所有权。
根据詹森（1986），这些特色产业包括钢铁，化工，酿造，烟草，电视和无线电广播，以及木材和纸制品行业。
该理论预测，这些行业拥有高杠杆率的特点。
公司控制
代理理论的一个局限是，哈特（1995a，1995 b）批评说，它假设代理问题可以得到缓解或消除，并且共同假定，经理可以在未来的任何突发事件和状态中知道应该采取什么行动。
但是，设计或执行这样的全面合同将非常昂贵（威廉姆森，1988）。
也许不断完善的和同更具有优势，分配股权持有人无法控制的，在合同给予债权人控制权的同时给股东权益所有者分配控制权（阿洪和博尔顿，1992）。
这种不完全合同法将权益和债券视为有价证券。
当公司财政状况稳健，股票持有人拥有控制权。
但是，债务拖欠还款将引发债务持有人的控制权转移。
管理层裁员和资产清算就是不可避免的了。
因此，管理层的要求会受到限制，以确保债务顺利还款。
尽管他们在冲突中加深和债权角色中的方式不同，在股东和经理之间两个相关的模型仍共同关心着这个利益冲突。
哈理斯和雷福（1990）假设，管理者总是希望继续公司的现有业务，即使该公司的清算将是投资者的首选。
但债务可以强制经理清算公司，因为债务违约会使管理者丢掉工作。
最佳资本结构在平衡滋长的债务偿还决策和研究成本之间取得。
斯图尔兹（1990），基于管理者总是希望投资提供资金以扩大企业规模，尽管投资者可能倾向于较高的股息支付的假设建立了不同的模型。
在斯图尔兹的模型的最优资本结构是通过权衡在预防好项目投资的不良债务成本和坏的投资债务的不良成本的利弊取得的。
因此，不同的是莫迪利亚尼-米勒的理论，改变企业的资本结构意味着改变企业内部和外部投资者的分配权，从而几乎肯定会改变该公司的投资政策（拉.波塔等人，2000）。
出处：［中］陈健，［美］罗杰．《经济变化与重构》，第38卷，2006（1）：11-35．。
