IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pep/journl/v5y1996i3p193-211.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Agency Advantage of Debt over the Lifecycle of the Firm

Author

Listed:
  • Ed Vos

    (University of Waikato)

  • Carolyn Forlong

    (University of Waikato)

Abstract

The question of an `optimal' capital structure of a firm has been studied for publicly listed businesses for years. From these studies, agency theory has emerged as a good way to understand a firm's capital structure. This paper empirically examines the role that agency theory plays in determining the capital structure of businesses as they move from being small unlisted businesses to newly listed on the stock exchange, to being mature listed businesses. The paper finds that debt has a negative agency advantage (defined as reducing agency costs of equity) for small businesses, a significant but minor advantage at the IPO stage, and a significant advantage at the mature listed stage.

Suggested Citation

  • Ed Vos & Carolyn Forlong, 1996. "The Agency Advantage of Debt over the Lifecycle of the Firm," Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, Pepperdine University, Graziadio School of Business and Management, vol. 5(3), pages 193-211, Fall.
    • Handle: RePEc:pep:journl:v:5:y:1996:i:3:p:193-211
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://jefsite.org/RePEc/pep/journl/jef-1996-05-3-b-vos.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stewart C. Myers & Nicholas S. Majluf, 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have InformationThat Investors Do Not Have," NBER Working Papers 1396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    3. Givoly, Dan, et al, 1992. "Taxes and Capital Structure: Evidence from Firms' Response to the Tax Reform Act of 1986," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(2), pages 331-355.
    4. 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.
    5. Edgar Norton, 1991. "Capital Structure and Small Growth Firms," Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, Pepperdine University, Graziadio School of Business and Management, vol. 1(2), pages 161-177, Winter.
    6. J. William Petty & William D. Bygrave, 1993. "What Does Finance Have to Say to the Entrepreneur?," Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, Pepperdine University, Graziadio School of Business and Management, vol. 2(2), pages 125-137, Spring.
    7. 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.
    8. Stephen A. Ross, 1977. "The Determination of Financial Structure: The Incentive-Signalling Approach," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 8(1), pages 23-40, Spring.
    9. Ibbotson, Roger G., 1975. "Price performance of common stock new issues," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 235-272, September.
    10. Ofek, Eli, 1993. "Capital structure and firm response to poor performance: An empirical analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 3-30, August.
    11. Myers, Stewart C., 1977. "Determinants of corporate borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-175, November.
    12. Davidsson, Per, 1989. "Entrepreneurship -- And after? A study of growth willingness in small firms," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 211-226, May.
    13. James S. Ang, 1992. "On the Theory of Finance for Privately Held Firms," Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, Pepperdine University, Graziadio School of Business and Management, vol. 1(3), pages 185-203, Spring.
    14. DeAngelo, Harry & Masulis, Ronald W., 1980. "Optimal capital structure under corporate and personal taxation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 3-29, March.
    15. Masulis, Ronald W, 1983. "The Impact of Capital Structure Change on Firm Value: Some Estimates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 38(1), pages 107-126, March.
    16. James S. Ang & James Wuh Lin & Floyd Tyler, 1995. "Evidence on the Lack of Separation between Business and Personal Risks among Small Businesses," Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, Pepperdine University, Graziadio School of Business and Management, vol. 4(2), pages 197-210, Fall.
    17. Myers, Stewart C., 1984. "Capital structure puzzle," Working papers 1548-84., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    18. Myers, Stewart C, 1984. "The Capital Structure Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(3), pages 575-592, July.
    19. Gupta, Manak C, 1969. "The Effect of Size, Growth, and Industry on the Financial Structure of Manufacturing Companies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 24(3), pages 517-529, June.
    20. Stewart C. Myers, 1984. "Capital Structure Puzzle," NBER Working Papers 1393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Maloney, Michael T & McCormick, Robert E & Mitchell, Mark L, 1993. "Managerial Decision Making and Capital Structure," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(2), pages 189-217, April.
    22. Shah, Kshitij, 1994. "The nature of information conveyed by pure capital structure changes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 89-126, August.
    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. Wu, Zhenyu & Chua, Jess H. & Chrisman, James J., 2007. "Effects of family ownership and management on small business equity financing," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 875-895, November.
    2. Joaquim J.S. Ramalho & Jacinto Vidigal da Silva, 2009. "A two-part fractional regression model for the financial leverage decisions of micro, small, medium and large firms," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(5), pages 621-636.
    3. Thomas M. Zellweger & Robert S. Nason & Mattias Nordqvist & Candida G. Brush, 2013. "Why Do Family Firms Strive for Nonfinancial Goals? An Organizational Identity Perspective," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 37(2), pages 229-248, March.
    4. Vos, Ed & Yeh, Andy Jia-Yuh & Carter, Sara & Tagg, Stephen, 2007. "The happy story of small business financing," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 2648-2672, September.
    5. Angelo Castaldo & Giuliana De Luca & Berardino Barile, 2021. "Does Initial Access To Bank Loans Predict Start‐Ups' Future Default Probability? Evidence From Italy," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(1), pages 83-106, January.

    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. Antonczyk, Ron Christian & Salzmann, Astrid Juliane, 2014. "Overconfidence and optimism: The effect of national culture on capital structure," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 132-151.
    2. Glenn Boyle & Kelly Eckhold, 1997. "Capital structure choice and financial market liberalization: evidence from New Zealand," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(4), pages 427-437.
    3. Joliet, Robert & Muller, Aline, 2013. "Capital structure effects of international expansion," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 375-393.
    4. Mai, Nhat Chi, 2012. "Market timing, taxes and capital structure: evidence from Vietnam," OSF Preprints t3mvs, Center for Open Science.
    5. repec:dgr:rugsom:01e55 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Chen, Linda H. & Jiang, George J., 2001. "The determinants of Dutch capital structure choice," Research Report 01E55, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    7. Harjeet S. Bhabra & Tong Liu & Dogan Tirtiroglu, 2008. "Capital Structure Choice in a Nascent Market: Evidence from Listed Firms in China," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 37(2), pages 341-364, June.
    8. Wolfgang Drobetz & Roger Fix, 2005. "What are the Determinants of the Capital Structure? Evidence from Switzerland," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 141(I), pages 71-113, March.
    9. Drobetz, Wolfgang & Pensa, Pascal & Wöhle, Claudia B., 2004. "Kapitalstrukturtheorie in Theorie und Praxis: Ergebnisse einer Fragebogenuntersuchung," Working papers 2004/09, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    10. Thi Hong Hoang & Călin Gurău & Amine Lahiani & Thuy-Luu Seran, 2018. "Do crises impact capital structure? A study of French micro-enterprises," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 181-199, January.
    11. Wiwattanakantang, Yupana, 1999. "An empirical study on the determinants of the capital structure of Thai firms," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 7(3-4), pages 371-403, August.
    12. 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.
    13. Romain FOGO PAWO, 2020. "déterminants objectifs de l’endettement en contexte de rationnement du crédit," Journal of Academic Finance, RED research unit, university of Gabes, Tunisia, vol. 11(2), pages 280-292, December.
    14. Nikolaos Daskalakis & Eleni Tsota, 2023. "Reintroducing Industry Effects in Capital Structure Determination of SMEs," Business & Entrepreneurship Journal, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 12(2), pages 1-4.
    15. Francisco Sogorb- Mira, 2002. "How Sme Uniqueness Affects Capital Structure: Evidence From A 1994-1998 Spanish Data Panel," Working Papers. Serie EC 2002-18, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    16. Zélia Serrasqueiro & Ana Caetano, 2015. "Trade-Off Theory versus Pecking Order Theory: capital structure decisions in a peripheral region of Portugal," Journal of Business Economics and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(2), pages 445-466, April.
    17. Rizov, Marian, 2008. "Corporate capital structure and how soft budget constraints may affect it," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 22(4), pages 648-684.
    18. repec:dgr:rugsom:01e54 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Geoffroy Enjolras & Gilles Sanfilippo, 2018. "The role of debt in financing French farm investments," Post-Print hal-02048362, HAL.
    20. Singh, Ajit, 1991. "The stock market and economic development: should developing countries encourage stock markets?," MPRA Paper 54927, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Oscar Briones & Melisa Chang, 2017. "Capital Structure Determinants Influence: A Comparative Study," Proceedings of International Academic Conferences 5007097, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
    22. Mateev, Miroslav & Poutziouris, Panikkos & Ivanov, Konstantin, 2013. "On the determinants of SME capital structure in Central and Eastern Europe: A dynamic panel analysis," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 28-51.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agency; Debt; Lifecycle;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups

    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:pep:journl:v:5:y:1996:i:3:p:193-211. 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: Craig Everett (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bapepus.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.