IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/ijmfpp/v10y2014i1p2-22.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The trade-off theory revisited: on the effect of operating leverage

Author

Listed:
  • Kristoffer J. Glover
  • Gerhard Hambusch

Abstract

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of operating leverage, and the subsequent abandonment option available to managers, on the relationship between corporate earnings and optimal financial leverage, thereby providing an alternative (rational) explanation for the observed negative relationship between these two quantities. Design/methodology/approach - – Working in a dynamic capital structure setting, where corporate earnings are modelled as an exogenous stochastic process, the paper explicitly adds fixed operating costs to the firm's value optimisation. This introduces a degree of operating leverage (DOL) and a non-zero value to the implicit abandonment option of the firm's manager. Solving for the firm's optimal timing and financing decisions the paper is able to derive the relationship between current corporate earnings and optimal financial leverage for a large class of earnings uncertainty assumptions. The theoretical implications are then tested empirically using a large selection of S&P 500 firms. Findings - – The analysis reveals that the manager's flexibility to abandon the project introduces nonlinearities into the valuation that are sufficient to reconcile the trade-off theory with the empirically observed negative earnings/financial leverage relationship. The paper further finds theoretical and empirical evidence of a positive relationship between operating and financial leverage. Originality/value - – Previous studies have used mean-reverting earnings as an explanation for the observed negative earnings/financial leverage relationship in a trade-off theory setting. The paper shows that the relationship does not need to be process specific. Instead, it is a direct result of the financial flexibility of managers.

Suggested Citation

  • Kristoffer J. Glover & Gerhard Hambusch, 2014. "The trade-off theory revisited: on the effect of operating leverage," International Journal of Managerial Finance, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 10(1), pages 2-22, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:ijmfpp:v:10:y:2014:i:1:p:2-22
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/IJMF-03-2013-0034?utm_campaign=RePEc&WT.mc_id=RePEc
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Murray Z. Frank & Vidhan K. Goyal, 2009. "Capital Structure Decisions: Which Factors Are Reliably Important?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 38(1), pages 1-37, March.
    2. Kane, Alex & Marcus, Alan J & McDonald, Robert L, 1984. " How Big Is the Tax Advantage to Debt?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(3), pages 841-853, July.
    3. Leland, Hayne E, 1994. " Corporate Debt Value, Bond Covenants, and Optimal Capital Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(4), pages 1213-1252, September.
    4. Rajan, Raghuram G & Zingales, Luigi, 1995. " What Do We Know about Capital Structure? Some Evidence from International Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1421-1460, December.
    5. Kristoffer Glover & Gerhard Hambusch, 2012. "Leveraged Investments and Agency Conflicts When Prices Are Mean Reverting," Research Paper Series 314, Quantitative Finance Research Centre, University of Technology, Sydney.
    6. Ivo Welch, 2004. "Capital Structure and Stock Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(1), pages 106-131, February.
    7. Sudipto Sarkar & Fernando Zapatero, 2003. "The Trade-off Model with Mean Reverting Earnings: Theory and Empirical Tests," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(490), pages 834-860, October.
    8. Titman, Sheridan & Wessels, Roberto, 1988. " The Determinants of Capital Structure Choice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 43(1), pages 1-19, March.
    9. Nevins D. Baxter, 1967. "Leverage, Risk Of Ruin And The Cost Of Capital," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 22(3), pages 395-403, September.
    10. Myers, Stewart C., 1984. "Capital structure puzzle," Working papers 1548-84., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    11. Alex Triantis & Adam Borison, 2001. "Real Options: State Of The Practice," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 14(2), pages 8-24.
    12. Myers, Stewart C, 1984. " The Capital Structure Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(3), pages 575-592, July.
    13. Stewart C. Myers, 1984. "Capital Structure Puzzle," NBER Working Papers 1393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Jamie A. Anderson-Parson & Terrill R. Keasler & Robin T. Byerly, 2015. "Bond Indenture Consent Solicitations as a Debt Management Tool," International Journal of Financial Studies, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 3(3), pages 1-14, July.
    2. Irene Wei Kiong Ting & Hooi Hooi Lean & Qian Long Kweh & Noor Azlinna Azizan, 2016. "Managerial overconfidence, government intervention and corporate financing decision," International Journal of Managerial Finance, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 12(1), pages 4-24, February.
    3. Correia, Ricardo & Población, Javier, 2015. "A structural model with Explicit Distress," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 112-130.
    4. Glover, Kristoffer J. & Hambusch, Gerhard, 2016. "Leveraged investments and agency conflicts when cash flows are mean reverting," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 1-21.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Abandonment option; Financial leverage; Operating leverage; Trade-off theory;

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory

    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:eme:ijmfpp:v:10:y:2014:i:1:p:2-22. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Virginia Chapman). General contact details of provider: http://www.emeraldinsight.com .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.