Capital Structure and Debt Structure

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Rauh, Joshua D.; Sufi, Amir
• 署名单位: Northwestern University; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Chicago
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF FINANCIAL STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0893-9454
• DOI: 10.1093/rfs/hhq095
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 4242
• 关键词: Private debt; public debt; bank loans; CHOICE; credit; bond; RENEGOTIATION; OPPORTUNITIES; INVESTMENT; reputation

摘要

Using a novel dataset that records individual debt issues on the balance sheets of public firms, we demonstrate that traditional capital structure studies that ignore debt heterogeneity miss substantial capital structure variation. Relative to high-credit-quality firms, low-credit-quality firms are more likely to have a multi-tiered capital structure consisting of both secured bank debt with tight covenants and subordinated non-bank debt with loose covenants. We discuss the extent to which these findings are consistent with existing theoretical models of debt structure in which firms simultaneously use multiple debt types to reduce incentive conflicts.