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CEO's Inside Debt and Dynamics of Capital Structure
Author(s) -
Brisker Eric R.,
Wang Wei
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
financial management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.647
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1755-053X
pISSN - 0046-3892
DOI - 10.1111/fima.12169
Subject(s) - capital structure , debt ratio , leverage (statistics) , debt , monetary economics , debt to gdp ratio , internal debt , weighted average cost of capital , business , debt levels and flows , shareholder , senior debt , debt to capital ratio , gearing ratio , external debt , recourse debt , financial system , economics , finance , microeconomics , economic capital , corporate governance , valuation (finance) , profit (economics) , individual capital , equity ratio , machine learning , equity capital markets , computer science
Debt‐type compensation (inside debt) exacerbates the divergence in risk preferences between the chief executive officer (CEO) and shareholders and, in turn, affects capital structure decisions. An excessively risk‐averse CEO tends to use less debt than the shareholders desire, reduce debt quickly when the firm is overlevered, but is reluctant to increase debt when the firm is underlevered. We find that higher CEO's inside debt ratio (i.e., inside debt as a percentage of total incentive compensation) is associated with lower firm leverage and faster (slower) leverage adjustments toward the shareholders’ desired level for overlevered (underlevered) firms. The CEO's inside debt ratio most conducive to capital structure rebalancing is around 10% of the firm's market debt ratio.