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Market Timing and Capital Structure

2001; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

10.2139/ssrn.267327

1556-5068

Malcolm Baker, Jeffrey Wurgler,

Corporate Finance and Governance

It is well known that firms are more likely to issue equity when their market values are high, relative to book and past market values, and to repurchase equity when their market values are low. We document that the resulting effects on capital structure are very persistent. As a consequence, current capital structure is strongly related to past market values. The results suggest the theory that capital structure is the cumulative outcome of past attempts to time the equity market.