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Cited by 360

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 1 of the 1 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Can Managerial Discretion Explain Observed Leverage Ratios?

Open access
Morellec, Erwan·2004·Review of Financial Studies

Abstract

This paper analyzes the impact of managerial discretion and corporate control mechanisms on leverage and firm value within a contingent claims model where the manager derives perquisites from investment. Optimal capital structure reflects both the tax adavantage of debt less bankruptcy costs and the agency costs of managerial discretion. Actual capital structure reflects the trade-off made by the manager between his empire-building desires and the need to ensure sufficient efficiency to prevent control challenges. The model shows that manager-shareholder conflicts can explain the low debt levels observed in practice. It also examines the impact of these conflicts on the cross-sectional variation in capital structures.

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Crossref · 10.1093/rfs/hhg036

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Metadata

Authors
Morellec, E.
Venue
Review of Financial Studies
Published
2003-10-15
Volume
17
Issue
1
Pages
257-294
ISSN
  • 0893-9454 (ISSN-L)
  • 1465-7368
OpenAlex
W2091530448
Cited by
360
References
1
FWCI
62.17
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Can Managerial Discretion Explain Observed Leverage Ratios? https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1093/rfs/hhg036
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Morellec, E. (2004). Can Managerial Discretion Explain Observed Leverage Ratios? Review of Financial Studies. https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhg036

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.