Title

How do firms finance their investments? The relative importance of equity issuance and debt contracting costs

Authors

Authors

V. A. Gatchev; P. A. Spindt;V. Tarhan

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

J. Corp. Financ.

Keywords

Debt financing; Equity financing; Issue costs; CAPITAL STRUCTURE; CORPORATE-DEBT; SECURITY DESIGN; AGENCY COSTS; INFORMATION; DETERMINANTS; COMPETITION; DECISIONS; MATURITY; ISSUES; Business, Finance

Abstract

This paper examines the financing decisions of firms in response to changes in investments and profits. We find that information frictions play important roles in firms' financing decisions. However, we find no evidence that asymmetric information about the value of a firm's assets causes equity to be used only as a last resort. Indeed equity is the predominant source of finance in situations, such as profit shortfalls, investment in intangible assets, and internally generated growth opportunities, where informational asymmetries and agency costs are likely to be high. We also find that firms respond asymmetrically to positive and negative profit shocks. In financing fixed assets, high asymmetric information firms use more short-term debt and less long-term debt, whereas firms with high potential agency problems use significantly more equity and less long-term debt and cash. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Journal Title

Journal of Corporate Finance

Volume

15

Issue/Number

2

Publication Date

1-1-2009

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

179

Last Page

195

WOS Identifier

WOS:000264183200001

ISSN

0929-1199

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