This paper examines how cash flows, investment expenditures and stock price histories affect corporate debt ratios. Consistent with earlier work, we find that these variables have a substantial influence on changes in capital structure. Specifically, stock price changes and financial deficits (i.e., the amount of external capital raised) have strong influences on capital structure changes, but in contrast to previous conclusions, we find that their effects are subsequently at least partially reversed. These results indicate that although a firm's history strongly influence their capital structures, that over time, financing choices tend to move firms towards target debt ratios that are consistent with the tradeoff theories of capital structure.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
10526.
Length: Date of creation: May 2004 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10526
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References listed on IDEAS 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.:
Alan J. Auerbach, 1985.
"Real Determinants of Corporate Leverage,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Corporate Capital Structures in the United States, pages 301-324
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Christopher Hennessy & Toni Whited, 2004.
"Debt Dynamics,"
2004 Meeting Papers
592, Society for Economic Dynamics.
Other versions:
Christopher A. Hennessy & Toni M. Whited, 2005.
"Debt Dynamics,"
Journal of Finance,
American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1129-1165, 06.
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