Leverage target and payout policy
研究发现，当企业实际债务低于目标杠杆水平时，更倾向于增加并平滑股利，且会将更多净债务发行所得用于支付股利。
Abstract Depending on whether the existing debt is below or above target debt level, some firms are more willing to raise debt (if needed) than others. In this article, I show that firms are more likely to both increase and smooth dividends when they have below‐target debt after controlling for access to debt. Additionally, I show that when firms have below‐target debt, they use a greater fraction of proceeds from net debt issues to finance dividends. I obtain similar results when repeating the tests with total payouts (dividends plus repurchases) instead of dividends only.