Kapitalstrukturer i svenska företag - En empirisk studie av räntebärande skuldsättningsgrad och den statiska tradeoff-teorin

Sammanfattning: This paper empirically examines the debt-to-asset ratios in Swedish listed companies during the years 1980-2009. The sample data consists of 4392 firm-year observations divided into ten different sectors. By combining variables from a 2009 study by Murray Z. Frank and Vidhan K. Goyal with a number of macroeconomic variables, we attempt to test if predictions made from the static trade off-theory provide explanatory power to the capital structures in Swedish firms. With two different debt-to-asset ratios as dependent variables, we find that our linear regression models indicate that firms tend to be more leveraged with higher tangibility. However, some results somewhat differ from the results in Frank and Goyal's study, and macroeconomic parameters seem to affect capital structures in a way that is not consistent with the static trade off-theory. Our results show that firms are more leveraged in periods of low economic growth, high nominal interest rates and high expected inflation.