How Stable are Corporate Capital Structures?

Abstract

Leverage cross sections more than a few years apart differ markedly, with similarities evaporating as the time between cross sections lengthens. Many firms have high and low leverage at different times, but few keep debt-to-assets ratios consistently above 0.500. Capital-structure stability is the exception, not the rule, occurs primarily at low leverage, and is virtually always temporary, with many firms abandoning low leverage during the post-war boom. Industry-median leverage varies widely over time. Target-leverage models that place little or no weight on maintaining a particular leverage ratio do a good job replicating the substantial instability of the actual leverage cross-section.