Finance Theory Meets Tax Law: How a Risk-Based Rule Can Rationalize the Debt Versus Equity Distinction

Internal Finance versus Bank Debt

This paper considers a two-period model in which a firm needs outside financing in period 2. If a firm establishes a reputation with a bank already in the first period, it may reduce the cost and increase the availability of bank debt in the second period. To establish such a reputation, the firm must induce the bank to monitor in period 1. Bank monitoring effort is non-contractible, so the fir...

Public Finance and Tax Equity in the Arabian Gulf Monarchies

This study examines notions of public finance equity in the six Arabian Gulf monarchies of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Because of unique characteristics of government expenditures and revenues in these monarchies, many of the standard concepts of public finance (such as the Benefits Principle, Abilityto-Pay Principle, Vertical Equity, and Horizontal...

Hamilton's rule: Game theory meets coalescent theory.

How Big Are the Tax Benefits of Debt?

I integrate under firm-specific benefit functions to estimate that the capitalized tax benefit of debt equals 9.7 percent of firm value (or as low as 4.3 percent, net of personal taxes). The typical firm could double tax benefits by issuing debt until the marginal tax benefit begins to decline. I infer how aggressively a firm uses debt by observing the shape of its tax benefit function. Paradox...

CONVERTIBLE NOTES: The Debt Versus Equity Classification Problem