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Have the tax benefits of debt been overestimated?

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  • Blouin, Jennifer
  • Core, John E.
  • Guay, Wayne
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    Abstract

    We re-examine the claim that many corporations are underleveraged in that they fail to take full advantage of debt tax shields. We show prior results suggesting underleverage stems from biased estimates of tax benefits from interest deductions. We develop improved estimates of marginal tax rates using a non-parametric procedure that produces more accurate estimates of the distribution of future taxable income. We show that additional debt would provide firms with much smaller tax benefits than previously thought, and when expected distress costs and difficult-to-measure non-debt tax shields are also considered, it appears plausible that most firms have tax-efficient capital structures.

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    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6VBX-500SK20-1/2/56d75ad162dc715e8b9f349c877f98fc
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    Bibliographic Info

    Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Financial Economics.

    Volume (Year): 98 (2010)
    Issue (Month): 2 (November)
    Pages: 195-213

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    Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:98:y:2010:i:2:p:195-213

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    Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505576

    Related research

    Keywords: Debt Capital structure Marginal tax rates Taxes;

    References

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    Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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    1. Brown, Lawrence D., 1993. "Earnings forecasting research: its implications for capital markets research," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 295-320, November.
    2. Gregor Andrade & Steven N. Kaplan, 1997. "How Costly is Financial (not Economic) Distress? Evidence from Highly Leveraged Transactions that Became Distressed," NBER Working Papers 6145, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. John Y. Campbell & Jens Hilscher & Jan Szilagyi, 2008. "In Search of Distress Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2899-2939, December.
    4. Brown, Lawrence D., 1993. "Reply to commentaries on "Earnings forecasting research: its implications for capital markets research"," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 343-344, November.
    5. John R. Graham, 2000. "How Big Are the Tax Benefits of Debt?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(5), pages 1901-1941, October.
    6. John R. Graham & Michael L. Lemmon & James S. Schallheim, 1998. "Debt, Leases, Taxes, and the Endogeneity of Corporate Tax Status," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(1), pages 131-162, 02.
    7. Carlos A. Molina, 2005. "Are Firms Underleveraged? An Examination of the Effect of Leverage on Default Probabilities," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1427-1459, 06.
    8. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1997. "Industry costs of equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 153-193, February.
    9. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-36, May-June.
    10. Heitor Almeida & Thomas Philippon, 2007. "The Risk-Adjusted Cost of Financial Distress," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(6), pages 2557-2586, December.
    11. Brown, Philip, 1993. "Comments on 'Earnings forecasting research: its implications for capital markets research' by L. Brown," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 331-335, November.
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    Cited by:
    1. Lars P. Feld & Jost Henrich Heckemeyer & Michael Overesch, 2011. "Capital Structure Choice and Company Taxation: A Meta-Study," CESifo Working Paper Series 3400, CESifo Group Munich.

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