Capital Structure and Debt Structure

Joshua D. Rauh and Amir Sufi

No 14488, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Using a novel data set that records individual debt issues on the balance sheet of a large random sample of rated public firms, we show that a recognition of debt heterogeneity leads to new insights into the determinants of corporate capital structure. We first demonstrate that traditional capital structure studies that ignore debt heterogeneity miss a substantial fraction of capital structure variation. We then show that 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. Further, while high credit quality firms enjoy access to a variety of sources of discretionary flexible sources of finance, low credit quality firms rely on tightly monitored secured bank debt for liquidity. 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 preserve manager and creditor incentives.

JEL-codes: G21 G30 G32 M41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc and nep-bec
Note: CF
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published as Joshua D. Rauh & Amir Sufi, 2010. "Capital Structure and Debt Structure," Review of Financial Studies, Oxford University Press for Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(12), pages 4242-4280, December.

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Journal Article: Capital Structure and Debt Structure (2010)
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