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The paper examines a continuous-time principal-agent model in which agent’s preference exhibits habit formation over consumption. As agent’s concern over the standard of living strengthens, his continuation utility is less sensitive to current wealth but more sensitive to the standard of living, leading to lower demand for risk-sharing compensation. The optimal contract has lower pay-for-performance but incentivizes agent’s higher effort. In the Leland (1994) capital structure model, agent’s habit formation preference combined with the optimal contract lowers firm’s leverage and mitigates the debt-overhang problem. / 2025-05-28T00:00:00Z

The finding of optimal debt-to-equity structure, taking into account the determinants which influence Capital Structure, is an ongoing problem in Corporate Finance. It is confirmed in theory as well as in practice in the world of Corporate Finance. There are several theoretical approaches to optimal Capital Structure, nevertheless, in practice none of these theories can be fully confirmed. The aim of the dissertation is the analysis of determinants of Capital Structure and the assessment of the application of current optimal Capital Structure theories. The significance of the individual determinants of Capital Structure is evaluated and the relationship between Leverage and certain determinants is analyzed, based on regression and correlation analysis. These tasks are based on an international point of view followed by the empirical application to mining companies in the Czech Republic and Europe. The dissertation is divided into 3 main parts which include a theoretical part, an analysis of current findings and, finally, an empirical analysis. In the theoretical part, the basic terms used in the topic of Capital Structure are defined by their different meanings in theory. These are Capital, Capital Structure and Leverage. The determinants of Capital Structure were specified with respect to the optimal Capital Structure theories, and the determination of optimal debt ratio is discussed. The analysis of current findings is focused on the empirical verification of optimal Capital Structure theories, on international examples, and on the example of the Czech Republic. Attention is dedicated to understanding the significance of determinants of Capital Structure and the determination of the relationship between Leverage and determinants of Capital Structure. A comparison of the theoretical and empirical findings is made between a group of American and European companies, and between three groups of countries (developed countries, developing countries and transition countries, including the Czech Republic). The empirical part is dedicated to the analysis of determinants of Capital Structure of mining companies in the Czech Republic and Europe. The analyzed determinants are size, profitability, tangibility of assets, and a non-debt tax shield.

<p>The costs and constraints to financing, and the factors that influence them, play critical roles in the determination of corporate capital structures.</p> <p>Chapter 1 estimates firm-specific marginal cost of debt functions for a large panel of companies between 1980 and 2007. The marginal cost curves are identified by exogenous variation in the marginal tax benefits of debt. The location of a given company's cost of debt function varies with characteristics such as asset collateral, size, book-to-market, intangible assets, cash flows, and whether the firm pays dividends. Quantifying, the total cost of debt is on average 7.9% of asset value at observed levels, reaching as high as 17.8%. Expected default costs constitute approximately half of the total ex ante cost of debt.</p> <p>Chapter 2 uses the intersection between marginal cost of debt functions and marginal benefit of debt functions to examine optimal capital structure. By integrating the area between benefit and cost functions, net benefit of debt at equilibrium levels of leverage is calculated to be 3.5% of asset value, resulting from an estimated gross benefit of debt of 10.4% of asset value and an estimated cost of debt of 6.9%. Furthermore, the cost of being overlevered is asymmetrically higher than the cost of being underlevered. Case studies of several firms reveal that, for some firms, the cost of being suboptimally levered is small while, for other firms, this cost is large, suggesting firms face differing sensitivities to the capital structure choice.</p> <p>Finally, Chapter 3 examines the role of financing constraints on intertemporal capital structure choices of the firm via a structural model of capital investment. In the model, firms maximize value by choosing the amount of capital to invest and the amount of debt to issue. Firms face a dividend non-negativity constraint that restricts them from issuing equity and a debt capacity constraint that restricts them from issuing non-secured debt. The Lagrange multipliers on the two constraints capture the shadow values of being constrained from equity and debt financing, respectively. The two financing constraint measures are parameterized using firm characteristics and are estimated using GMM. The results indicate that these measures capture observed corporate financing behaviors and describe financially constrained firms. Finally, between the two financing constraints, the limiting constraint is the debt restriction, suggesting that firms care about preserving financial slack.</p> / Dissertation

The main aim of this thesis is to describe the optimalization and quantification of a capital structure in a company, both theoretically and practically. The first part comprises general understanding of a quite broad theoretical base. Firstly, the capital structure of a company and its individual parts are defined. Further, there is the analysis of the method of calculation of individual types of costs of capital. Major attention is paid to the description and evaluation of the various theories of the optimalization of capital structure. In the end of the theoretical part, the most important determinants of the capital structure are mentioned. The practical part of the thesis emphasis on the detailed analysis of an optimal capital structure of a real firm - Škoda Auto a.s. whereas the major attention is paid to balancing of the proportion of the company's own equity and foreign capital. The final part of the thesis includes calculation of the company's actual costs of capital and there are recommendations of how it could optimize its capital structure.

This paper investigated the change in corporate debt levels in South Africa from 1994 to 2016. Included is an analysis of factors that companies take into consideration when determining the company's capital structure. This study used data from companies, largely from the mining sector, within sectors listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), including chemicals, general industries, oil and gas. Four different leverage measures were used to determine the change in capital structure for the period under review, as well as six of the most commonly used determinants of capital structure. A high-level interpretation of the results reflected the following; a slight but relatively consistent increase in the use of debt relative to equity over the period for both the total sample and the mining sector. An increase in the use of long- relative to short term debt was also found, as well as a convergence between the use of current and non-current liabilities. Results from the analysis of the capital structure determinants varied, with some showing statistical significance. Asset tangibility was positively correlated to debt, while profitability and growth had a negative relationship. The relationship between company size, tax and cost of debt and leverage was varied.

The diploma thesis is focused on the issue of the capital structure of a selected company and the possibilities of affecting it from company’s perspective. The basic concepts related to the capital structure, the issue of optimizing the capital structure, the factors that affect the capital structure and the financial performance of the company are explained. Furthermore, the work deals with a proposal of ways or sources, by which the company could optimize its capital structure in order to streamline its business.

This thesis analyses the impact of tax policy on firms' leverage ratios in a balanced panel of 129 medium-sized listed companies from II European countries from 1993 to 2005. A general model of company leverage is applied within which King's tax ratios are used to capture tax policy changes, controlling for non-tax influences suggested by the theory of corporate finance. Various leverage measures are studied to check for the robustness of the estimated model. Total debt is then decomposed into long-term and short-term debt to examine the determinants of different components of debt. The estimation is initially performed within a traditional static framework. The model is estimated using panel data techniques, including the Hausman-Taylor (1981) instrumental variable estimator and the Arellano-Bover (1995) GMM estimator to control for endogeneity. The results suggest that tax policy as measured has a significant but small impact on firms' leverage ratios and the impact is stronger on short-term borrowings than on long-term ones. Non-debt tax shields are a substitute for debt in company activities. With regard to control variables, the empirical findings suggest that non-tax factors affect financing decisions in a way somewhat consistent with the pecking-order theory. There is evidence to support the argument for the differences between the determinants of long-term and short-terin financing decisions. Further research is done by adopting a dynamic adjustment model which allows firms to deviate from their optimal leverage due to random shocks and takes account of adjustment costs incurred when they work back gradually to the optimal level. Arellano-Bond (1991) GMM estimator is applied to obtain consistent estimates. The results substantiate the existence of adjustment costs and corroborate the results from the static model that tax policy measured by King's tax ratios exerts a significant impact on firms' total debt and short-term debt. Finns under the 'Anglo-Saxon' corporate governance systems appear to bear lower adjustment costs and thus have a higher adjustment speed than those under more relation-based systems for all forms of debt. In addition, firms bear lower adjustment costs in adjusting their long-term debt than short-term debt regardless of their corporate governance systems.

This study investigates the impact macroeconomic factors have on corporate capital structure in Sweden. We use a panel data analysis of unbalanced data for the sample period, 2005-2014. While previous research has shown that key factors internal to the firm are highly correlated with leverage, such as profitability, asset tangibility and firm size, we add external factors and test for economic growth, inflation, interest rates, corporate tax rates, and exchange rates. Our models do not present any substantial explanatory power for the relationship between the macroeconomic environment and different leverage ratios. This study finds some support for certain indicators, although not consistent across ratios.

Thesis (M.M. (Finance & Investment))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Business Administration, 2013. / The capital structure theory was pioneered by Modigliani and Miller (1958). In their study, Modigliani and Miller (1958) argued that capital structure was irrelevant to firm value. There is also significant theory on the capital structure of firms and its determinants. Using a panel of non-financial firms listed on the JSE Securities Exchange, we investigate the relevance of capital structure on firm value and investigate the capital structure of firms in South Africa. The results of the analysis on the relevance of capital structure on firm value indicated that there is no statistically significant relationship between firm value and the capital structure of firms. This analysis was conducted for the general sample of firms in the study, within industries and by firm size, however, the results were consistent throughout all the analysis. The results of the capital structure and its determinants analysis indicated that South African firms followed a pecking order theory. The results also indicated that profitability, size, asset tangibility and tax shield has a statistically significant relationship to gearing or the firm’s capital structure. The analysis of the South African firms’ capital structure indicated that firms in South Africa tend to use more long-term debt than short-term debt. The leverage ratios also differed among industries with the Health care industry having the highest levels of leverage and the Technology industry having the lowest levels of leverage.