Bankruptcy and Agency Costs: Their Significance to the Theory of Optimal Capital Structure
探讨破产成本与代理成本对最优资本结构的影响，指出市场机制可消除破产成本障碍，但纯市场方案难以解决风险激励等代理问题，复杂融资合约或可解释当代金融合约的复杂性。
We support and generalize our original results (1978) in light of potential impediments to a pure market solution to agency problems and potential causal links between liquidation and bankruptcy. In the case of bankruptcy costs, market impediments are easily eliminated through the inclusion of simple provisions in corporate charters and bond indentures. Further, we demonstrate that recent attempts to link liquidation costs to capital structure are without merit. If the firm is to be liquidated on the basis of a rule other than one that maximizes the total value of all the claimants, arbitrage profits arise, and informal reorganization will discipline management to follow the liquidation rule that is optimal for existing securityholders. Also, we find that the pure market solution is not readily generalizable to other classes of agency problems, particularly the risk incentive problem. However, the alternative solution of the risk incentive problem through complex financing contracting may be useful in explaining complexities in contemporary financial contracts.