Timing of Earnings and Capital Structure

Abstract

This paper shows that asymmetric information about the timing of earnings can affect capital structure. It sheds new light on the following issues: why profitable firms may be interested in issuing equity and why debt does not necessarily signal a firm’s quality. These issues seem to be puzzling from the classical pecking-order theory or signalling theory point of view. The paper also contributes to the analysis of the link between capital structure choice and a firm’s expected performance (short-term and long-term). An empirical analysis confirms most of our theoretical results.