The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.
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On the Relevance of Debt Maturity Structure
Published: 12/01/1985 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1985.tb02392.x
IVAN E. BRICK, S. ABRAHAM RAVID
In this paper, we present a tax‐induced framework to analyze debt maturity problems. We show that under some modifications of the existing U.S. tax code, debt maturity is irrelevant even in the presence of taxes and bankruptcy costs that yield an optimal capital structure. If this restrictive structure is relaxed, and assuming the Miller [15] equilibrium does not prevail, tax reasons would usually imply the existence of an optimal debt maturity structure. If there exists a gain from leverage, then an increasing term structure of interest rates, adjusted for default risk, results in long‐term debt being optimal. A decreasing term structure, under similar circumstances, renders short‐term debt optimal. In the absence of agency costs, a Miller [15]‐type result emerges at equilibrium and irrelevance prevails. We also argue that agency costs could again reverse the irrelevance and imply a firm‐specific optimal debt maturity structure.
Taxes and the Theory of Trade Debt
Published: 09/01/1984 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1984.tb03900.x
IVAN E. BRICK, WILLIAM K. H. FUNG
In this paper, we show that taxes motivate the flow of trade credit without involving the assumption of credit market imperfections. The direction of trade credit flow depends on the distribution of marginal tax rates among buyers and sellers. In equilibrium, the trade credit decision follows a tax‐induced clientele on both the supply and demand side.