1、本科毕业论文（设计） 外 文 翻 译 原文： Optimal Capital Structure Reflections on Economic and Other Values Over the last few decades studies have been produced on the effect of other stake holders interests on capital structure. Well-known examples are the interests of customers who receive product or service guaran
2、tees from the company. Another area that has received considerable attention is the relation between managerial incentives and capital structure (Ibid.). Furthermore, the issue of corporate control 1 and, related, the issue of corporate governance , receive a lions part of the more recent academic a
3、ttention for capital structure decisions. From all these studies, one thing is clear: The capital structure decision (or rather ,the management of the capital structure over time) involves more issues than the maximization of the rms market value alone. In this paper, we give an overview of the diff
4、erent objectives and considerations that have been proposed in the literature. We make a distinction between two broadly dened situations. The rst is the traditional case of the rm that strives for the maximization of the value of the shares for the current shareholders. Whenever other consideration
5、s than value maximization enter capital structure decisions, these considerations have to be instrumental to the goal of value maximization. The second case concerns the rm that explicitly chooses for more objectives than value maximization alone. This may be because the shareholders adopt a multipl
6、e stakeholders approach or because of a different ownership structure than the usual corporate structure dominating nance literature. An example of the latter is the cooperation, a legal entity which can be found, in among others, many European countries. For a discussion on why rms are facing multi
7、ple goals, we refer to Hallerbach and Spronk 。 According to the neoclassical view on the role of the rm, the rm has one single objective: maximization of shareholder value. Shareholders possess the property rights of the rm and are thus entitled to decide what the rm should aim for. Since shareholde
8、rs only have one objective in mind - wealth maximization - the goal of the rm is maximization of the rms contribution to the nancial wealth of its share-holders. The rm can accomplish this by investing in projects with a positive net present value. Part of shareholder value is determined by the corp
9、orate nancing decision. Two theories about the capital structure of the rm - the trade-off theory and the pecking order theory - assume shareholder wealth maximization as the one and only corporate objective. We will discuss both theories including several market value related extensions. Based on t
10、his discussion we formulate a list of criteria that is relevant for the corporate nancing decision in this essentially neoclassical view. The original proposition I of Modigliani and Miller tates that in a perfect capital market the equilibrium market value of a rm is independent of its capital stru
11、cture, i.e. the debt-equity ratio. If proposition I does not hold then arbitrage will take place. Investors will buy shares of the undervalued rm and sell shares of the overvalued rm in such a way that identical income streams are obtained. As investors exploit these arbitrage opportunities, the pri
12、ce of the overvalued shares will fall and that of the undervalued shares will rise, until both prices are equal. When corporate taxes are introduced , proposition I changes dramatically. Modigliani and Miller show that in a world with corporate tax the value of rms is among others a function of leve
13、rage. When interest payments become tax deductible and payments to shareholders are not, the capital structure that maximizes rm value involves a hundred percent debt nancing. By increasing leverage, the payments to the government are reduced with a higher cash ow for the providers of capital as a r
14、esult. The difference between the present value of the taxes paid by an unlevered rm and an identical levered rm is the present value of tax shields . In the traditional trade-off models of optimal capital structure it is assumed that rms balance the marginal present value of interest tax shields ag
15、ainst the marginal direct costs of nancial distress or direct bankruptcy costs. Additional factors can be included in this trade-off framework. Other costs than direct costs of nancial distress are agency costs of debt . Often cited examples of agency costs of debt are the underinvestment problem, t
16、he asset substitution problem ， the “play for time” game by managers, the “unexpected increase of leverage (combined with an equivalent pay out to stockholders to make to increase the impact),” the “refusal to contribute equity capital” and the “cash in and run” game . These problems are caused by t
17、he difference of interest between equity and debt holders and could be seen as part of the indirect costs of nancial distress. Another benet of debt - besides the PVTS - is the reduction of agency costs between managers and external holders of equity. Jensen and Meckling argue that debt, by allowing
18、 larger managerial residual claims because the need for external equity is reduced by the use of debt, increases managerial effort to work. In addition, Jensen 23 argues that high leverage reduces free cash (ow) with less resources to waste on unprotable investments as a result. The agency costs bet
19、ween management and external equity are often left out the trade-off theory since it assumes managers not acting on behalf of the shareholders (only) which is an assumption of the traditional trade-off theory. In Myers and Myers and Majlufs pecking order model there is no optimal capital structure.
20、Instead, because of asymmetric information and signaling problems associated with external nancing, rms nancing policies follow a hierarchy, with a preference for internal over external nance, and for debt over equity. A strict interpretation of this model suggests that rms do not aim at a target de
21、bt ratio. Instead, the debt ratio is just the cumulative result of hierarchical nancing over time. . Original examples of signaling models are the models of Ross and Leland and Pyle. Ross suggests that higher nancial leverage can be used by managers to signal an optimistic future for the rm and that
22、 these signals cannot be mimicked by unsuccessful rms. Leland and Pyle 30 focus on owners instead of managers. They assume that entrepreneurs have better information on the expected cash ows than outsiders have. The inside information held by an entrepreneur can be transferred to suppliers of capital because it is in the owners interest to invest a greater fraction of
