1、本科毕业论文（设计） 外 文 翻 译 原文 ： The Determinants of Capital Structure:Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies One early extension was to allow for the incidence of taxation and nancial distress. Since the late 1970s, there have been two new strands of research which originate more from the theory of the rm:
2、the pecking order theory and the trade-o theory. The pecking order theory argues that rms have a preference of issuing nancing instruments due to adverse selection problems (Myers and Majluf, 1984). The theory suggests that the nancial manager tends to use internal capital as the rst choice, then is
3、sue debt, and equity will only be considered as the last resort as issuance of equity can be perceived by the market as a signal of a poor future for the investment. In contrast, the trade-o theory emphasizes that an optimal capital structure can be achieved by the trade-o of the various benets of d
4、ebt and equity. 2.1. The pecking order theory The pecking order theory is based on the information asymmetries between the rms managers and the outside investors. Ross (1977) was the rst to address the function of debt as a signalling mechanism when there are information asymmetries between the rms
5、management and its investors. He argued that management has better knowledge of the rm than the investors, and that management will try to avoid debt when the rm is performing poorly for fear that any debt default due to poor cash ow will result in their job loss. The information asymmetry may also
6、explain why existing investors may not favor new equity nancing, as new investors may require higher returns to compensate for the risks of their investment thus diluting the returns to existing investors. Myers and Majluf (1984) later developed their so-called pecking order theory of nancing: i.e.
7、that capital structure will be driven by rms desire to nance new investments preferably through the use of internal funds, then with low-risk debt, and with new equity only as a last resort. In their theory, there is no optimal capital structure that maximizes the rm value. The nancial managers issu
8、e debt or equity purely according to the costs of capital. Subsequent empirical studies provide mixed evidence. Helwege and Liang (1996) found no empirical evidence for such a pecking order. Booth et al. (2001) found evidence supporting the theory in their 10-country empirical study. Frank and Goyal
9、 (2003) tested the pecking order theory on a broad cross-section of publicly traded American rms for 1971 to 1998, and concluded that the theory was not supported by the evidence. Whilst large rms exhibited some aspects of pecking order behavior, the evidence was not robust to the inclusion of conve
10、ntional leverage factors, nor to the analysis of evidence from the 1990s. 2.2. The trade-off theory The trade-o theory argues that there is an optimal capital structure that maximizes the rm value, but the trade-o comes in various forms. 2.2.1. TaxShield Benets and the Financial Distress Cost of Deb
11、t One of the crucial assumptions of the MM (1958) model was that there is no taxation. Later work by Modigliani and Miller (1963), and Miller (1977) add tax eects into the original framework. An implication of this newer work was that rms should nance their projects completely through debt in order
12、to maximize corporate value. Clearly this contradicts reality in that debt constitutes only a fraction of rms total capital. Subsequent theoretical work seeks an optimal capital structure which results from a trade-o between the benets of tax shield of debt and the costs of nancial distress of debt.
13、 According to this line of theory, the benets of debt arise from its tax exemption, which implies that a higher debt ratio will increase the rms value. But the benets can be oset by costs of nancial distress, which may destroy the value of the rm. Thus the optimal capital structure is determined by
14、the trade-o between the tax-free benets of debt and the distress costs of debt - see Figure 1. De Angelo and Masulis (1980), Ross (1985) and Leland (1994) have shown that, in the presence of taxation, it is advantageous for a rm with safe, tangible assets and plenty of taxable income to take a high
15、debt-equity ratio to avoid high tax payments. For a rm with poorer performance and more intangible assets, it is better to rely on equity nancing. One problem with the theories based on consideration of the tax-shield benets is that they cannot explain why capital structures vary across rms that are
16、 subject to the same taxation rates. Empirical evidence from the United States (Copeland and Weston, 1992) shows that the capital structure of corporations did not change much after corporate income tax came into existence. In Australia, where there is no dual income taxation at all, capital structu
17、re is roughly the same as in other economies (Rajan and Zingales, 1995). Booth et al. (2001) found that the tax benets vary in developing countries and play no role in the determination of capital structure choice. 2.2.2. Agency Theory and Capital Structure Even if markets are perfect and there is n
18、o tax impact, agency theory suggests that the appropriate mix of debt and equity is still an important matter for corporate governance. In general, debt claims provide the holders with a xed repayment schedule but little in the way of rights to control the company, as long as the repayment schedule
19、(and sometimes certain other terms) is met. However, creditors can have a strong inuence over a company if it gets in nancial distress but, even if a company is nancially sound, creditors can inuence whether it can obtain additional funding for proposed new projects. For example, a bank that has loa
20、ned a company the money for factory expansion can make it easy or hard for the company to borrow more money for a new oce building. Conversely, equity claims in particular, common stock give shareholders the right to vote for Boards of Directors and on other important corporate issues such as major mergers or plans that would dispose of substantial portions of the companys assets. Shareholders are also entitled to receive dividends or other distributions
