Deleveraging and decline in revenue‐expense matching over time
研究发现美国企业自1972年至2013年杠杆率下降导致收入与利息费用的同期相关性减弱，但考虑资本成本后相关性未显著变化，表明债务与权益的会计处理差异影响盈余属性。
Abstract Accounting rules mandate that the cost of debt should be recorded as an expense, while the cost of equity does not appear in the income statement. Therefore, the amount of financing expense, and thus net income, in the income statements depends on how firms finance their business. Based on a clear, substantial trend of declining leverage since the 1990s, we examine how changes in capital structure might influence earnings attributes—the matching between revenues and expenses. We find that the contemporaneous relation between revenues and interest expense in US firms has decreased from 1972 to 2013, a result of both changes in leverage and the declining explanatory power of interest expense with respect to revenues. When we construct the weighted average costs of capital based on the costs of both debt and equity, we find the contemporaneous relation between revenues and the costs of capital has not significantly changed. Our results indicate that differential accounting treatment of the costs of debt and equity can affect earnings attributes through change in capital structure.