Growth Opportunities and the Choice of Leverage, Debt Maturity, and Covenants
研究企业增长机会如何影响其杠杆、债务期限和契约的联合选择，发现契约保护随增长机会、债务期限和杠杆增加而增强，且契约能缓解高增长企业的债务代理成本。
ABSTRACT We investigate the effect of growth opportunities in a firm's investment opportunity set on its joint choice of leverage, debt maturity, and covenants. Using a database that contains detailed debt covenant information, we provide large‐sample evidence of the incidence of covenants in public debt and construct firm‐level indices of bondholder covenant protection. We find that covenant protection is increasing in growth opportunities, debt maturity, and leverage. We also document that the negative relation between leverage and growth opportunities is significantly attenuated by covenant protection, suggesting that covenants can mitigate the agency costs of debt for high growth firms.