Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Debt/Equity Ratio And Asset Pricing Analysis, Nicholas Lyle

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

A firm’s value can be manipulated by altering how much debt a firm takes on relative to its equity called the Debt/Equity ratio. The positive aspects of debt are tax shields and the perception that the firm is trying to expand their current operations while the negative effects are increased bankruptcy risk. The optimal ratio is where the negative aspects begin to outweigh the positive. Since bankruptcy risk is hard to value there are many opinions on what the optimal Debt/Equity ratio for a specific firm is.

This study looks to historic data to determine how the market perceives debt …