Taxes, Financing Decisions, and Firm Value
通过横截面回归研究公司价值与股利和债务的关系，发现股利和债务传递了盈利能力信息，掩盖了融资决策的税收效应。
We use cross‐sectional regressions to study how a firm's value is related to dividends and debt. With a good control for profitability, the regressions can measure how the taxation of dividends and debt affects firm value. Simple tax hypotheses say that value is negatively related to dividends and positively related to debt. We find the opposite. We infer that dividends and debt convey information about profitability (expected net cash flows) missed by a wide range of control variables. This information about profitability obscures any tax effects of financing decisions.