The Investment Opportunity Set and Acquired Goodwill
研究新西兰企业如何将收购子公司的成本分配至有形净资产和收购商誉，发现收购商誉与杠杆率负相关，且这种关系可能源于投资机会集的内生影响。
This paper examines how managers in New Zealand allocate the cost of firms' investments in subsidiaries between net tangible assets and acquired goodwill. We find a negative relation between acquired goodwill and leverage. This could be interpreted as the result of managers of highly leveraged acquiring firms opportunistically allocating a lower portion of the acquisition price to acquired goodwill. However, this analysis, like much of the research on accounting choice, suffers from an omitted variables problem. We present evidence that the observed negative relation between acquired goodwill and leverage may stem from each variable's relation to the investment opportunity set. Further, we find no evidence that acquired goodwill is related to the existence of debt covenants. Together, these results suggest an endogenous relation between the firm's asset structure, its financing policy, and the allocation of acquisition price to acquired goodwill.