The Cost of Debt
利用税收优惠函数的外生变化，估计了企业特定债务成本函数，发现债务的均衡净收益为资产价值的3.5%，且过度杠杆的成本不对称地高于杠杆不足的成本。
ABSTRACT We use exogenous variation in tax benefit functions to estimate firm‐specific cost of debt functions that are conditional on company characteristics such as collateral, size, and book‐to‐market. By integrating the area between the benefit and cost functions, we estimate that the equilibrium net benefit of debt is 3.5% of asset value, resulting from an estimated gross benefit (cost) of debt equal to 10.4% (6.9%) of asset value. We find that the cost of being overlevered is asymmetrically higher than the cost of being underlevered and that expected default costs constitute only half of the total ex ante costs of debt.