(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)"> (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)">
[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/nbr/nberch/11572.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Taxation, Corporate Capital Structure, and Financial Distress

In: Tax Policy and the Economy: Volume 4

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Gertler
  • R. Glenn Hubbard
Abstract
Is corporate leverage excessive? Is the tax code distorting corporate capital structure decisions in a way that increases the possibility of an economic crisis owing to "financial instability"? Answering these kinds of questions first requires some precision in terminology. In this paper, we describe the cases for and against the trend toward high leverage, and evaluate the role played by taxation. While provision of proper incentives to managers may in part underlie the trend to the debt, high leverage may in practice be a blunt way to address the problem, and one which opens up the possibility for undue exposure to the risks of financial distress. Our story takes as given the kinds of managerial incentive problems deemed important by advocates of leverage. We maintain, however, that when a firm is subject to business-cycle risk as well as individual risk, a profit maximizing arrangement is not simple debt, but rather a contract with mixed debt and equity features. That is, the contract should index the principal obligation to aggregate and/or industry-level economic conditions. We argue that the tax system encourages corporations to absorb more business cycle risk than they would otherwise. It does so in two respects: First, it provides a relative subsidy to debt finance; second, it restricts debt for tax purposes from indexing the principal to common disturbances. At a deeper level, the issue hinges on the institutional aspects of debt renegotiation. If renegotiation were costless, then debt implicitly would have the equity features relevant for responding to business-cycle risk. However, because of the diffuse ownership pattern of much of the newly issued debt and also because of certain legal restrictions, renegotiation is likely to be a costly activity.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Gertler & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1990. "Taxation, Corporate Capital Structure, and Financial Distress," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy: Volume 4, pages 43-72, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:11572
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c11572.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David M. Cutler & Lawrence H. Summers, 1988. "The Costs of Conflict Resolution and Financial Distress: Evidence from the Texaco-Pennzoil Litigation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(2), pages 157-172, Summer.
    2. Feldstein, Martin & Dicks-Mireaux, Louis & Poterba, James, 1983. "The effective tax rate and the pretax rate of return," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 129-158, July.
    3. Calomiris, Charles W & Hubbard, R Glenn, 1990. "Firm Heterogeneity, Internal Finance, and 'Credit Rationing.'," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(399), pages 90-104, March.
    4. Michael C. Jensen, 2010. "Active Investors, LBOs, and the Privatization of Bankruptcy," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 22(1), pages 77-85, January.
    5. Mark Gertler & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1988. "Financial factors in business fluctuations," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 33-78.
    6. Sanford J. Grossman & Oliver D. Hart, 1982. "Corporate Financial Structure and Managerial Incentives," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Information and Uncertainty, pages 107-140, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    8. Russell Cooper & Andrew John, 1988. "Coordinating Coordination Failures in Keynesian Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(3), pages 441-463.
    9. repec:bla:jfinan:v:44:y:1989:i:4:p:923-52 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Ben S. Bernanke & John Y. Campbell, 1988. "Is There a Corporate Debt Crisis?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(1), pages 83-140.
    11. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1988. "Value Maximization and the Acquisition Process," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 7-20, Winter.
    12. Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason, 1990. "Do Firms Care Who Provides Their Financing?," NBER Chapters, in: Asymmetric Information, Corporate Finance, and Investment, pages 63-104, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Rosanne Altshuler & Alan J. Auerbach, 1990. "The Significance of Tax Law Asymmetries: An Empirical Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(1), pages 61-86.
    14. Benjamin M. Friedman, 1986. "Increasing indebtedness and financial stability in the United States," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 27-61.
    15. Henry Kaufman, 1986. "Debt: the threat to economic and financial stability," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 71(Dec), pages 3-11.
    16. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    17. Poterba, James M., 1989. "Tax reform and the market for tax-exempt debt," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 537-562, August.
    18. Takeo Hoshi & Anil Kashyap & David Scharfstein, 1990. "Bank Monitoring and Investment: Evidence from the Changing Structure of Japanese Corporate Banking Relationships," NBER Chapters, in: Asymmetric Information, Corporate Finance, and Investment, pages 105-126, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Ben Bernanke & Mark Gertler, 1990. "Financial Fragility and Economic Performance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(1), pages 87-114.
    20. Takeo Hoshi & Anil K. Kashyap & David Scharfstein, 1989. "Bank monitoring and investment: evidence from the changing structure of Japanese corporate banking relations," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 86, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    21. Henry Kaufman, 1986. "Debt: the threat to economic and financial stability," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 15-26.
    22. Mark J. Warshawsky, 1988. "Pension plans: funding, assets, and regulatory environment," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), issue Nov, pages 717-730.
    23. John B. Shoven, 1987. "The Tax Consequences of Share Repurchases and Other Non-Dividend Cash Payments to Equity Owners," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 1, pages 29-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Myers, Stewart C., 1977. "Determinants of corporate borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-175, November.
    25. Lawrence H. Summers, 1989. "“Taxation and Corporate Debt”," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 2(1), pages 45-51, March.
    26. Benjamin M. Friedman, 1986. "Increasing Indebtedness and Financial Stability in the United States," NBER Working Papers 2072, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Jensen, Michael C, 1988. "Takeovers: Their Causes and Consequences," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 21-48, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dailami, Mansoor & Giugale, Marcelo, 1991. "Reflections on credit policy in developing countries : its effect on private investment," Policy Research Working Paper Series 654, The World Bank.
    2. Patrick Artus, 1993. "Crises financières et cycle réel : Le rôle des imperfections du marché du crédit," Revue d'Économie Financière, Programme National Persée, vol. 26(3), pages 89-107.
    3. Frederick T. Furlong, 1990. "Tax incentives for corporate leverage in the 1980s," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Fall, pages 3-17.
    4. Hans-Werner Sinn, 1991. "Taxation and the Cost of Capital: The "Old" View, the "New" View, and Another View," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 5, pages 25-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Mark Gertler & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1993. "Corporate Financial Policy, Taxation, and Macroeconomic Risk," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 24(2), pages 286-303, Summer.
    6. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1993. "Corporate Tax Integration: A View from the Treasury Department," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 115-132, Winter.
    7. Charles W. Calomiris & Athanasios Orphanides & Steven A. Sharpe, 1994. "Leverage as a State Variable for Employment, Inventory Accumulation, andFixed Investment," NBER Working Papers 4800, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Davis, E. Philip & Stone, Mark R., 2004. "Corporate financial structure and financial stability," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 65-91, September.
    9. Fabio ALESSANDRINI, 2003. "Introducing Capital Structure in a Production Economy: Implications for Investment, Debt and Dividends," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 03.03, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    10. Timothy J. Goodspeed & Daphne A. Kenyon, 1993. "The Nonprofit Sector's Capital Constraint: Does It Provide a Rationale for the Tax Exemption Granted To Nonprofit Firms?," Public Finance Review, , vol. 21(4), pages 415-433, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "A Survey of Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 737-783, June.
    2. Philip Lowe & Thomas Rohling, 1993. "Agency Costs, Balance Sheets and the Business Cycle," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp9311, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    3. Roger H. Gordon & Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason, 1990. "Effects of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 on Corporate Financial Policy and Organizational Form," NBER Working Papers 3222, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Sanjiva Prasad & Christopher J. Green & Victor Murinde, 2005. "Company Financial Structure: A Survey and Implications for Developing Economies," Chapters, in: Christopher J. Green & Colin Kirkpatrick & Victor Murinde (ed.), Finance and Development, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Gomes, Armando & Phillips, Gordon, 2012. "Why do public firms issue private and public securities?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 619-658.
    6. Guillaume Colosiez & Mouldi Djelassi, 1993. "La redécouverte des cycles financiers," Revue d'Économie Financière, Programme National Persée, vol. 26(3), pages 109-144.
    7. R. Glenn Hubbard & Peter C. Reiss, 1989. "Corporate Payouts and the Tax Price of Corporate Retentions: Evidence from the Undistributed Profits Tax of 1936-1938," NBER Working Papers 3111, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Martynova, M., 2006. "The market for corporate control and corporate governance regulation in Europe," Other publications TiSEM 8651e281-4914-41f2-ac14-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Sanjiva Prasad & Christopher J. Green & Victor Murinde, 2001. "Company Financing, Captial Structure, and Ownership: A Survey, and Implications for Developing Economies," SUERF Studies, SUERF - The European Money and Finance Forum, number 12 edited by Morten Balling, May.
    10. Anton Miglo, 2020. "Zero-Debt Policy under Asymmetric Information, Flexibility and Free Cash Flow Considerations," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-25, November.
    11. Oliver Hart & John Moore, 1990. "A Theory of Corporate Financial Structure Based on the Seniority of Claims," STICERD - Theoretical Economics Paper Series 217, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    12. Gertner, Robert & Scharfstein, David, 1991. "A Theory of Workouts and the Effects of Reorganization Law," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(4), pages 1189-1222, September.
    13. Martinsson, Gustav, 2009. "Finance and R&D Investments - is there a debt overhang effect on R&D investments?," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 174, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    14. Mark Gertler & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1993. "Corporate Financial Policy, Taxation, and Macroeconomic Risk," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 24(2), pages 286-303, Summer.
    15. Xin Qu & Majella Percy & Fang Hu & Jenny Stewart, 2022. "Can CEO equity‐based compensation limit investment‐related agency problems?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(2), pages 2579-2614, June.
    16. Tåg, Joacim, 2010. "The Real Effects of Private Equity Buyouts," Working Paper Series 851, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    17. Fungáčová, Zuzana & Godlewski, Christophe J. & Weill, Laurent, 2020. "Does the type of debt matter? Stock market perception in Europe," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 247-256.
    18. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1990. "Introduction to "Asymmetric Information, Corporate Finance, and Investment"," NBER Chapters, in: Asymmetric Information, Corporate Finance, and Investment, pages 1-14, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. R. Glenn Hubbard & Darius Palia, 1995. "Benefits of Control, Managerial Ownership, and the Stock Returns of Acquiring Firms," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 26(4), pages 782-793, Winter.
    20. Anderson, Ronald W. & Nyborg, Kjell G., 2011. "Financing and corporate growth under repeated moral hazard," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 1-24, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:11572. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.