IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/coecpo/v10y1992i1p65-80.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Corporate Leverage And The Business Cycle

Author

Listed:
  • RAMA SETH

Abstract

This paper examines the pattern of corporate leverage in the United States during the 1980s. Firms in other countries increased their debt during this period. However, the United States was the only major industrialized country in which firms experienced increases in both leverage and interest burden. Previous studies analyzing the distribution of corporate debt across sectors in the United States concluded that to the extent a pattern is discernible, highly indebted firms are concentrated in the stable sectors. This study confirms this earlier finding but shows that the U.S. firms that have been increasing their leverage most rapidly have been concentrated in cyclical sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • Rama Seth, 1992. "Corporate Leverage And The Business Cycle," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 10(1), pages 65-80, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:10:y:1992:i:1:p:65-80
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1465-7287.1992.tb00212.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7287.1992.tb00212.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1465-7287.1992.tb00212.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert N. McCauley & Steven A. Zimmer, 1989. "Explaining international differences in the cost of capital," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 14(Sum), pages 7-28.
    2. Ben S. Bernanke & John Y. Campbell, 1988. "Is There a Corporate Debt Crisis?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(1), pages 83-140.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carpentier, Cécile, 2000. "Choix de financement et ratio cible : Le cas français," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 76(3), pages 365-392, septembre.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stephen Nickell & John Van Reenen, 2001. "Technological Innovation and Performance in the United Kingdom," CEP Discussion Papers dp0488, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    2. 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.
    3. Shai Bernstein & Josh Lerner & Filippo Mezzanotti, 2019. "Private Equity and Financial Fragility during the Crisis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(4), pages 1309-1373.
    4. Fattouh, Bassam & Pisicoli, Beniamino & Scaramozzino, Pasquale, 2024. "Debt and financial fragility: Italian non-financial companies after the pandemic," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    5. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1991. "Introduction to "Financial Markets and Financial Crises"," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Markets and Financial Crises, pages 1-10, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Fattouh, Bassam & Scaramozzino, Pasquale & Harris, Laurence, 2005. "Capital structure in South Korea: a quantile regression approach," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 231-250, February.
    7. Mark Gertler & R. Glenn Hubbard & Anil Kashyap, 1991. "Interest Rate Spreads, Credit Constraints, and Investment Fluctuations: An Empirical Investigation," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Markets and Financial Crises, pages 11-32, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Vitols, Sigurt, 1995. "Corporate governance versus economic governance: banks and industrial restructuring in the US and Germany," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economic Change and Employment FS I 95-310, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    9. RONALD I. McKINNON, 1990. "Interest Rate Volatility And Exchange Risk: New Rules For A Common Monetary Standard," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 8(2), pages 1-17, April.
    10. Dorene Isenberg, 1989. "The Changing Role of Debt in Bankruptcy," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_31, Levy Economics Institute.
    11. Bayraktar, Nihal, 2014. "Fixed investment/fundamental sensitivities under financial constraints," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 25-59.
    12. Maurice Obstfeld, 1993. "International Capital Mobility in the 1990s," NBER Working Papers 4534, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Mishkin, Frederic S, 1994. "Preventing Financial Crises: An International Perspective," The Manchester School of Economic & Social Studies, University of Manchester, vol. 62(0), pages 1-40, Suppl..
    14. Yang, Xiaolou & Hu, Yingyao, 2024. "Default risk and stock returns: From a perspective of measurement errors," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 1545-1561.
    15. Charles W. Calomiris & Athanasios Orphanides & Steven A. Sharpe, 1994. "Leverage as a state variable for employment, inventory accumulation, and fixed investment," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 94-24, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    16. (Kim | Lopez-Salido | Swanson) & Andrew Levin, 2004. "The magnitude and Cyclical Behavior of Financial Market Frictions," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 224, Society for Computational Economics.
    17. Bengt Holmstrom & Steven N. Kaplan, 2001. "Corporate Governance and Merger Activity in the U.S.: Making Sense of the 1980s and 1990s," NBER Working Papers 8220, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. George J. Benston, 1994. "Universal Banking," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 121-143, Summer.
    19. Korajczyk, Robert A. & Levy, Amnon, 2003. "Capital structure choice: macroeconomic conditions and financial constraints," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 75-109, April.
    20. Patrick Artus, 1993. "Crises financières et cycle réel : Le rôle des imperfections du marché du crédit," Revue d'Économie Financière, Programme National Persée, vol. 26(3), pages 89-107.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:10:y:1992:i:1:p:65-80. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.