According to existing dynamic capital structure trade off theories equity holders never find it in their best interest to reduce debt voluntarily before bankruptcy or without renegotiating with creditors. This paper develops a model in which firms optimize the maturity structure of debt to commit to future downward restructurings. It is demonstrated that equityholders of firms with short-term d...

We explore the determinants of debt and growth in debt at the individual and household level. The focus is on the influence of expectations of individuals and households regarding their future financial situation. Our theoretical model predicts a positive association between the quantity of debt and optimism. The empirical findings provide convincing support for our theoretical priors in that o...

This paper shows that corporate debt type, maturity and priority structures and their determinants are not homogeneous across firms of different size. Small firms use leasing and bank loans and overdraft while large companies rely on loan capital, convertible and subordinated loans. Small companies depend more on secured debt while large companies’ debt is unsecured and subordinated. The result...

Debt protection products help consumers pay off a debt or continue or suspend payments upon the occurrence of unfortunate and unpredictable events like death, disability, and involuntary unemployment. The credit insurance version is almost as old as familiar consumer credit itself, but there also are newer forms of debt protection called debt cancellation and debt suspension agreements that wil...

This study examines the interaction between external debt and economic growth, and analyses the sustainability of Nigeria’s foreign debt. Given the several reschedulings and persistent accumulation of the debt arrears, and consistently high debt burden ratios, it is doubtful if the debt burden can be judged as sustainable. This study employed analytical method and the findings from the analysis...

The valuation of debt and equity, reorganization boundaries, and firm’s optimal dividend policies are studied in a framework where we model strategic interactions between debt holders and equity holders in a game-theoretic setting which can accommodate varying bargaining powers to the two claimants. Two formulations of reorganization are presented: debt-equity swaps and strategic debt service r...

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...

The postwar literature on public debt has been concerned primarily with two related issues: (1)whether public debt allows the cost of government to be shifted forward onto future generations and (2) whether the creation of public debt involves a positive net wealth effect. The development of this literature can be portrayed chronologically by three works, even though many authors have contribut...

Most capital structure models assume that the decision of how much debt to issue is a static choice. In practice, however, firms adjust outstanding debt levels in response to changes in firm value. In this article, we solve for the optimal dynamic capital strategy of a firm and investigate the implications for optimal leverage ratios and the magnitude of the tax benefits to debt. Below, we cons...

Technical debt utilises financial debt as a metaphor to describe the phenomenon of increasing software development costs over time. Whilst this phenomenon is evidently detrimental to the long-term success of software development, it appears to be poorly understood in the academic literature. The absence of a clear definition and model for technical debt means that the notion of technical debt r...