Determinants of capital structure Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Determinants of capital structure - Essay Example es statement of financial position, cash flow statement as well as statement of income of many existing and extinct companies based all over the world. Initially, a great deal of effort was made to define the independent and dependent variable required for the purpose of regression analysis. The regression analysis that has been done in this particular study is based upon gearing measures. Thus, in order to conduct this analysis, alternative definitions of gearing have been explained in the following paragraphs. Non-equity liabilities to total assets: The book value of this gearing ratio is the ratio between the total debt plus trade credit and equivalent to total assets (equation 1). The market value of this gearing measure can be calculated by adjusting the value of the total assets, deducting the book value of equity and adding the market value of equity (equation 2). The equation can be represented as follows: According to Rajan and Zingales (1995), the gearing measure serves as a proxy for the liquidation value of a company. The authors also argued that the value of this indicator may be significantly inflated, as it may only represent financial transactions, instead of assets. Debt to Total Assets: This gearing measure is the ratio between the total debts to total assets (equation 3). The market value of this multiple is determined by adjusting the asset, by deducting the book value of equity and adding the market value of equity (equation 4) (Phillips, Libby and Libby, 2011; Fridson and Alvarez, 2011). The equation can be represented as follows: Debt to Capital: This gearing measure is the ratio between the total debts to capital. The capital in the denominator represents the total debt plus the equity, which includes the preference shares as well (equation 5) (Rose and Hudgins, 2008). The market value of this gearing measure is calculated by adjusting market value of equity, instead of adjusting the book value of equity (equation 6). The equation can be