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Vermögensspezifität, Agency-Kosten und Kapitalstruktur
Erlei, Mathias | Schmidt-Mohr, Udo
Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch, Vol. 116 (1996), Iss. 4 : pp. 561–591
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Erlei, Mathias
Schmidt-Mohr, Udo
Abstract
In this paper we analyze the impact of asset specificity on the capital structure of a firm. We show that the transaction cost economic argument in Williamson (1988) is at least incomplete in major aspects. However, we find that his basic idea that higher asset specificity leads to a lower debt / equity ratio is confirmed in our theoretically more consistent model. Some additional insights from our model are: (a) Project aggregation has an impact on the firm's optimal capital structure even if all projects of the firm show the same specificity. Therefore, a project oriented analysis as presented by Williamson (1988) is problematic, (b) The relationship between asset specificity and capital structure holds only if uncertainty is prevalent.