IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/0955.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Taxes, Firm Financial Policy and the Cost of Capital: An Empirical Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Alan J. Auerbach

Abstract

This paper develops a theoretical model of firm behavior consistent with the maximization of shareholder utility, and derives empirically testable implications of different theories of equity finance. Using data on firm earnings and previous investment and financial behavior, we assess whether firms treat new share issues as a more expensive source of finance than retentions, and whether such behavior varies across firms according to the composition of their shareholders. Our results strongly support the hypothesis that firms perceive a higher cost of capital when issuing new shares, and that the cost of capital varies significantly across firms having different estimated tax clienteles, as theory would predict.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan J. Auerbach, 1982. "Taxes, Firm Financial Policy and the Cost of Capital: An Empirical Analysis," NBER Working Papers 0955, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0955
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0955.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Salinger & Lawrence H. Summers, 1983. "Tax Reform and Corporate Investment: A Microeconometric Simulation Study," NBER Chapters, in: Behavioral Simulation Methods in Tax Policy Analysis, pages 247-288, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Feenberg, Daniel, 1981. "Does the investment interest limitation explain the existence of dividends?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 265-269, September.
    3. Ariél Pakes & Zvi Griliches, 1984. "Estimating Distributed Lags in Short Panels with an Application to the Specification of Depreciation Patterns and Capital Stock Constructs," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(2), pages 243-262.
    4. Elton, Edwin J & Gruber, Martin J, 1970. "Marginal Stockholder Tax Rates and the Clientele Effect," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 52(1), pages 68-74, February.
    5. J. S. S. Edwards & M. J. Keen, 1984. "Wealth Maximization and the Cost of Capital: A Comment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(1), pages 211-214.
    6. Poterba, James M. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1983. "Dividend taxes, corporate investment, and `Q'," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 135-167, November.
    7. Robert Ferber, 1967. "Determinants of Investment Behavior," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number ferb67-1, May.
    8. Hayashi, Fumio, 1982. "Tobin's Marginal q and Average q: A Neoclassical Interpretation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 213-224, January.
    9. Litzenberger, Robert H & Ramaswamy, Krishna, 1980. "Dividends, Short Selling Restrictions, Tax-Induced Investor Clienteles and Market Equilibrium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 35(2), pages 469-482, May.
    10. DeAngelo, Harry & Masulis, Ronald W., 1980. "Optimal capital structure under corporate and personal taxation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 3-29, March.
    11. Miller, Merton H, 1977. "Debt and Taxes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(2), pages 261-275, May.
    12. Baumol, William J, et al, 1970. "Earnings Retention, New Capital and the Growth of the Firm," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 52(4), pages 345-355, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Serge Nadeau & Robert P. Strauss, 1991. "Tax Policies and the Real and Financial Decisions of the Firm: the Effects of the Tax Reform Act of 1986," Public Finance Review, , vol. 19(3), pages 251-292, July.
    2. Poterba, James M & Summers, Lawrence H, 1984. "New Evidence that Taxes Affect the Valuation of Dividends," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(5), pages 1397-1415, December.
    3. Richard W. Kopcke, 1995. "Tobin's Q, economic rents, and the optimal stock of capital," Working Papers 95-4, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    4. Steven M. Fazzari & R. Glenn Hubbard & Bruce C. Petersen, 1988. "Financing Constraints and Corporate Investment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(1), pages 141-206.
    5. James M. Poterba & Lawrence H. Summers, 1984. "The Economic Effects of Dividend Taxation," Working papers 343, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    6. Auerbach, Alan J, 1983. "Taxation, Corporate Financial Policy and the Cost of Capital," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 905-940, September.
    7. Richard W. Kopcke, 1992. "Tobin's Q, economic rents, and the optimal stock of capital," Working Papers 92-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    8. Frankfurter, George M. & Wood, Bob Jr., 2002. "Dividend policy theories and their empirical tests," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 111-138.
    9. Dickescheid, Thomas, 2002. "Steuerwettbewerb und Direktinvestitionen," Beiträge zur Finanzwissenschaft, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, edition 1, volume 16, number urn:isbn:9783161477348, December.
    10. Jack Mintz, 1995. "Corporation tax: a survey," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 16(4), pages 23-68, November.
    11. Huizinga, Harry & Laeven, Luc & Nicodeme, Gaetan, 2008. "Capital structure and international debt shifting," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 80-118, April.
    12. Randall Morck, 2003. "Why Some Double Taxation Might Make Sense: The Special Case of Inter-corporate Dividends," NBER Working Papers 9651, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. François Gourio & Jianjun Miao, 2010. "Firm Heterogeneity and the Long-Run Effects of Dividend Tax Reform," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 131-168, January.
    14. Richard W. Kopcke, 1991. "Economic rents, the demand for capital, and financial structure," Working Papers 91-8, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    15. Michael Devereux, 2003. "Measuring taxes on income from capital," IFS Working Papers W03/04, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    16. Dan Dhaliwal & Shane Heitzman & Oliver Zhen Li, 2006. "Taxes, Leverage, and the Cost of Equity Capital," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 691-723, September.
    17. Auerbach, Alan J., 2002. "Taxation and corporate financial policy," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 19, pages 1251-1292, Elsevier.
    18. Chay, J. B. & Marsden, Alastair, 1996. "Market reaction to the introduction of a foreign investor tax credit regime in New Zealand," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 4(2-3), pages 129-152, July.
    19. Trevor S. Harris & R. Glenn Hubbard & Deen Kemsley, 1999. "The Share Price Effects of Dividend Taxes and Tax Imputation Credits," NBER Working Papers 7445, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Hanlon, Michelle & Heitzman, Shane, 2010. "A review of tax research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 127-178, December.

    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:nbr:nberwo:0955. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.