IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1523.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Have U.S. Corporations Grown Financially Weak?

Author

Listed:
  • Robert A. Taggart, Jr.

Abstract

The feelingis widespread that the financial strength of U.S. corporations has eroded over the past twenty years. This trend is often blamed on some combination of the tax system, inflation and overly optimistic assessments of business risk.This paper examines recent corporate financing developments from along-run perspective. It is concluded that these developments appear less dangerous when viewed in the context of the twentieth century as a whole than when viewed in the context of the post-World War II years. A second major conclusion is that powerful corrective mechanisms are at work to keep corporate financial positions from becoming too risky. These forces have been particularly noticeable over the past ten years. Third, the effects on business financing of the tax system, inflation and business risk are difficult to trace in the aggregate data, and these effects may be less straightforward than has commonly been thought. Finally, it is argued that the degree of economic instability and the relative level of federal government borrowing will be key determinants of future corporate financing patterns.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert A. Taggart, Jr., 1984. "Have U.S. Corporations Grown Financially Weak?," NBER Working Papers 1523, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1523
    Note: ME
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1523.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Norman E. Mains, 1980. "Recent corporate financing patterns," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), issue Sep, pages 683-690.
    2. Benjamin M. Friedman, 1982. "Debt and Economic Activity in the United States," NBER Chapters, in: The Changing Roles of Debt and Equity in Financing U.S. Capital Formation, pages 91-110, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Benjamin M. Friedman, 1982. "The Changing Roles of Debt and Equity in Financing U.S. Capital Formation," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie82-1.
    4. Benjamin M. Friedman, 1981. "Debt and Economic Activity in the United States," NBER Working Papers 0704, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. John H. Wood, 1981. "Interest rates and inflation," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 5(May), pages 3-12.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Benjamin M. Friedman, 1983. "Managing the U.S. Government Deficit in the 1980s," NBER Working Papers 1209, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Fratianni, Michele & von Hagen, Jurgen, 2001. "The Konstanz Seminar on monetary theory and policy at 30," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 641-664, September.
    3. Hume, Michael & Sentance, Andrew, 2009. "The global credit boom: Challenges for macroeconomics and policy," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(8), pages 1426-1461, December.
    4. Smant, David / D.J.C., 2002. "Bank credit in the transmission of monetary policy: A critical review of the issues and evidence," MPRA Paper 19816, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Bayer, Christian, 2006. "Investment dynamics with fixed capital adjustment cost and capital market imperfections," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1909-1947, November.
    6. Fratianni, Michele & von Hagen, Jürgen, 2001. "The Konstanz Seminar on Monetary Theory and Policy at Thirty," ZEI Working Papers B 02-2001, University of Bonn, ZEI - Center for European Integration Studies.
    7. Größl Ingrid & Stahlecker Peter, 2000. "Finanzierungsbedingungen und Güterangebot: Ein Überblick über finanzökonomische Ansätze und deren geldpolitische Konsequenzen," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 220(2), pages 223-250, April.
    8. Edward Offenbacher & Richard D. Porter & Georg Rich, 1983. "Empirical comparisons of credit and monetary aggregates using vector autoregressive methods," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 69(Nov), pages 16-29.
    9. Kashyap, Anil K & Stein, Jeremy C & Wilcox, David W, 1993. "Monetary Policy and Credit Conditions: Evidence from the Composition of External Finance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 78-98, March.
    10. 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.
    11. Benjamin M. Friedman, 1987. "New Directions in the Relationship Between Public and Private Debt," NBER Working Papers 2186, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Robert Taggart, Jr, 1986. "Have U.S. Corporations Grown Financially Weak?," NBER Chapters, in: Financing Corporate Capital Formation, pages 13-34, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Christian Bayer, 2001. "Aggregate investment dynamics when firms face fixed investment cost and capital market imperfections," Discussion Papers in Economics 01_13, University of Dortmund, Department of Economics.
    14. Lawrence H. Summers, 1986. "Debt problems and macroeconomic policies," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 165-208.
    15. Jean-Paul Pollin & William Marois, 1985. "Avant-propos," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 36(6), pages 1155-1168.
    16. Mark Gertler, 1988. "Financial structure and aggregate economic activity: an overview," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 559-596.
    17. Xing, Xiaoyun & Xiong, Wanting & Chen, Liujun & Chen, Jiawei & Wang, Yougui & Stanley, H. Eugene, 2018. "Money circulation and debt circulation: A restatement of quantity theory of money," Economics Discussion Papers 2018-1, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    18. Patric H. Hendershott, 1986. "Debt and Equity Returns Revisited," NBER Chapters, in: Financing Corporate Capital Formation, pages 35-50, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Chakraborty, Lekha S., 2006. "Fiscal deficit, capital formation, and crowding out: Evidence from India," Working Papers 06/43, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    20. 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.

    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:nberwo:1523. 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.