IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jfinan/v61y2006i4p1731-1758.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can Managers Successfully Time the Maturity Structure of Their Debt Issues?

Author

Listed:
  • ALEXANDER W. BUTLER
  • GUSTAVO GRULLON
  • JAMES P. WESTON

Abstract

This paper provides a rational explanation for the apparent ability of managers to successfully time the maturity of their debt issues. We show that a structural break in excess bond returns during the early 1980s generates a spurious correlation between the fraction of long‐term debt in total debt issues and future excess bond returns. Contrary to Baker, Taliaferro, and Wurgler (2006), we show that the presence of structural breaks can lead to nonsense regressions, whether or not there is any small sample bias. Tests using firm‐level data further confirm that managers are unable to time the debt market successfully.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander W. Butler & Gustavo Grullon & James P. Weston, 2006. "Can Managers Successfully Time the Maturity Structure of Their Debt Issues?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1731-1758, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jfinan:v:61:y:2006:i:4:p:1731-1758
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2006.00888.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.2006.00888.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-6261.2006.00888.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
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Frank, Murray Z. & Nezafat, Mahdi, 2019. "Testing the credit-market-timing hypothesis using counterfactual issuing dates," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 187-207.
    2. Robin Greenwood & Samuel G. Hanson, 2013. "Issuer Quality and Corporate Bond Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(6), pages 1483-1525.
    3. Andrea J. Heuson & Gary Painter, 2011. "The Impact of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 on Housing Turnover in the U.S. Single Family Residential Market," Working Paper 8509, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate.
    4. Koijen, Ralph S.J. & Hemert, Otto Van & Nieuwerburgh, Stijn Van, 2009. "Mortgage timing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 292-324, August.
    5. Wang, Yizhong & Wang, Ting & Chen, Lifang, 2021. "Maturity mismatches of Chinese listed firms," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    6. Erik Devos & Andrew Spieler & Desmond Tsang, 2014. "Elective Stock Dividends and REITs: Evidence from the Financial Crisis," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 42(1), pages 33-70, March.
    7. Robin Greenwood & Samuel Hanson & Jeremy C. Stein, 2010. "A Gap‐Filling Theory of Corporate Debt Maturity Choice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(3), pages 993-1028, June.
    8. Bukalska Elżbieta & Skibińska-Fabrowska Ilona, 2023. "Corporate Investment in Bank-Dependent Companies in Crisis Time," Central European Economic Journal, Sciendo, vol. 10(57), pages 1-22, January.
    9. Butler, Alexander W. & Cornaggia, Jess & Grullon, Gustavo & Weston, James P., 2011. "Corporate financing decisions, managerial market timing, and real investment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 666-683, September.
    10. Pegoraro, Stefano & Montagna, Mattia, 2021. "Issuance and valuation of corporate bonds with quantitative easing," Working Paper Series 2520, European Central Bank.
    11. Chala, Alemu Tulu, 2018. "Refinancing Risk and Debt Maturity Choice during a Financial Crisis," Working Papers 2018:33, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    12. Chang, Xin & Chen, Yunling & Dasgupta, Sudipto, 2019. "Macroeconomic conditions, financial constraints, and firms’ financing decisions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 242-255.
    13. Malcolm P. Baker & Ryan Taliaferro & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2004. "Pseudo Market Timing and Predictive Regressions," NBER Working Papers 10823, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Kelly Nianyun Cai & Xiaoquan Jiang & Hei Wai Lee, 2013. "Debt Ipo Waves, Investor Sentiment, Market Conditions, And Issue Quality," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 36(4), pages 435-452, December.
    15. Barry, Christopher B. & Mann, Steven C. & Mihov, Vassil & Rodríguez, Mauricio, 2009. "Interest rate changes and the timing of debt issues," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 600-608, April.
    16. John A. Doukas & Jie (Michael) Guo & Bilei Zhou, 2011. "‘Hot’ Debt Markets and Capital Structure," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 17(1), pages 46-99, January.
    17. Andrea J. Heuson & Gary Painter, 2014. "The Impact of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 on Housing Turnover in the U.S. Single-Family Residential Market," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 42(4), pages 869-899, December.
    18. António Afonso, & Manish K. Singh, 2016. "Is the supply of long-term debt independent of the term premia? Evidence from Portugal," Working Papers Department of Economics 2016/11, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.

    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:jfinan:v:61:y:2006:i:4:p:1731-1758. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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/afaaaea.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.