Inequality and capital structure
高收入者将更多储蓄投入股市，较少投入信贷市场，因此收入不平等上升会减少债务资本的相对供给。非金融企业通过调整资本结构来适应这种变化，实证支持了杠杆率与本地收入不平等之间的负相关关系。
High-income individuals direct a higher share of their savings toward the stock market and a lower share toward credit markets and bank deposits. An increase in income inequality thus translates into an expected decrease in the relative supply of debt capital. Nonfinancial corporations are predicted to cater to these shifts by adjusting their capital structure. Results from instrumental variable models estimated on a panel sample of either US or non-US corporations and several robustness checks empirically support this prediction. Consistent with the theorized household portfolio channel, the negative relation between leverage and local income inequality is driven by corporations less likely to have access to non-local capital markets. This result is confirmed when exploiting the introduction of the euro as an exogenous shock to European firms’ relative exposure to non-domestic investors.