Important theories of capital structure include the pecking order theory and trade-off
theory. In the pecking order theory, external financing is more expensive for riskier
securities (possibly due to informational asymmetries between managers and security
holders). Thus, firms prefer to finance first with internal funds, then with debt, and
lastly with equity. In the trade-off theory, the benefits of increased leverage (for
example, tax benefits or reductions in agency costs) are weighed against the costs of
increased leverage (for example, deadweight bankruptcy costs) in order to determine
the optimal amount of leverage (Korajczyk and Levy, 2003). Thus, the trade-off theory
suggests a proportional relationship between financial leverage and economic
performance (Andersen, 2005). With respect to the bankruptcy costs, bankruptcy
probability increases with debt level since it increases the risk that the firm might not
be able to generate profits to repay the interest and the loans. In other words, if there is
the likelihood of bankruptcy and the expected associated costs of bankruptcy are
significant, the firm with high leverage may not be as attractive to investors as the one
with limited leverage (Van Horne, 2002).
đang được dịch, vui lòng đợi..