Determinants of corporate borrowing: A behavioral perspective

Dirk Hackbarth

Journal of Corporate Finance, 2009, vol. 15, issue 4, 389-411

Abstract: This article integrates an earnings-based capital structure model into a simple real options framework to analyze the effects of managerial optimism and overconfidence on the interaction between financing and investment decisions. Several empirical implications follow from solving the model. Notably, my analysis reveals that managerial traits can ameliorate bondholder-shareholder conflicts, such as the debt overhang problem. While debt delays investment inefficiently, mildly biased managers can overcome this problem, even though they tend to issue more debt. Similar properties and results are discussed for other real options, such as the asset stripping or risk-shifting problems.

Keywords: Behavioral; corporate; finance; Capital; structure; Debt; overhang; Real; options (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (77)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929-1199(09)00017-0
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:corfin:v:15:y:2009:i:4:p:389-411

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Corporate Finance is currently edited by A. Poulsen and J. Netter

More articles in Journal of Corporate Finance from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().