Capital Structure and Corporate Financing Decisions: Theory, Evidence, and Practice

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JWBT436-c01 JWBT436-Baker February 11, 2011 7:53 Printer Name: Hamilton

4 Capital Structure: An Overview

INTENDED AUDIENCE

The intended audience for this book includes academics, researchers, corporate

managers, students, and others interested in capital structure and corporate financ-

ing decisions. Considering its extensive coverage and focus on the theoretical and

empirical literature, this book should be appealing to academics and researchers as

a critical resource. Given the book’s intuitive and largely nontechnical approach,

it is geared toward helping corporate managers formulate policies and financial

strategies that maximize firm value and policymakers in understanding capital

structure choices. This volume can also stand alone or in tandem with another text

or casebook for graduate and advanced undergraduate students, especially those

in business or finance. This book should be especially useful in helping students

develop the critical analytical skills required to understand the implications of

capital structure. Finally, libraries should find this work to be suitable for reference

purposes.

STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

The remaining 23 chapters of this book are organized into four parts. A brief

synopsis of each chapter follows.

Part I The Elements of Capital Structure

Chapters 2–7 provide an overview of the elements of capital structure. These

chapters lay the foundation and discuss important principles and concepts in-

volving capital structure. Chapters in this section examine ...