Debt Capacity of Tangible Assets: What is Collateralizable in the Debt Market?

62 Pages Posted: 21 Mar 2008 Last revised: 28 Dec 2011

See all articles by Erasmo Giambona

Erasmo Giambona

Syracuse University - Whitman School of Management - Finance Department; James D. Kuhn Center for Real Estate

Armin Schwienbacher

SKEMA Business School

Date Written: August 12, 2008

Abstract

Starting with Titman and Wessels (1988), capital structure studies have consistently controlled for the effect of an aggregate measure of tangible assets, including land, building, machinery & equipment, capital leases, and plant & equipment in progress, on leverage. They usually report a positive relation between this aggregate measure of tangibility and leverage. We find that this positive link subsists however mainly for "hard" tangible assets, namely land and building, after any specific source of endogeneity is carefully addressed, which is consistent with the view that tangible assets differ in terms of redeployability, contractibility and speed of depreciation. Consistent with our theoretical predictions, we report that "hard" tangible assets and leverage are directly linked only for credit constrained firms, while tangibility and leverage are separate decisions for credit unconstrained firms.

Keywords: land, building, machinery & equipment, leverage

JEL Classification: G32

Suggested Citation

Giambona, Erasmo and Schwienbacher, Armin, Debt Capacity of Tangible Assets: What is Collateralizable in the Debt Market? (August 12, 2008). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1099331 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1099331

Erasmo Giambona (Contact Author)

Syracuse University - Whitman School of Management - Finance Department; James D. Kuhn Center for Real Estate ( email )

721 University Avenue
RM 640
Syracuse, NY 13244-2450
United States
315 443-4885 (Phone)

Armin Schwienbacher

SKEMA Business School ( email )

Avenue Willy Brandt
Euralille, 59777
France

HOME PAGE: http://sites.google.com/view/armin-schwienbacher

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