现代公司资本结构理论演变

1958年莫迪格列尼(Modigliani)和米勒(Miller)共同提出著名的MM定理,标志着现代公司资本结构理论的形成。MM定理历经几十年的拓展和扬弃,逐渐放松其严格的假设条件,发展了四种主要的资本结构理论:基于避税利益、破产成本和代理成本的静态平衡理论;基于非对称信息的顺序偏好理论;以产品/投入品市场的相互作用为基础的理论;考虑公司控制权竞争的理论。后面两种资本结构的理论要么还处在发展的初期,要么主要研究的是资本结构的短期反应,都算不上资本结构的主流理论。资本结构的主流理论可以归结为两种:静态平衡理论和顺序偏好理论。

Evolvement of Modern Theory of Capital Structure of Companies

The modern theory of capital structure originates from the celebrated paper by Modigliani and Miller published in 1958. In their paper the famous MM irrelevance theorem is proposed. After some dozens of years of development, MM theorem gradually loosened its rigorous hypothesis condition and established the following four major theories of capital structure: 1) The Static Tradeoff Model based on tax evasion, bankruptcy cost, and agency cost; 2) Pecking Order theory based on asymmetric information; 3) The theory based on product/input markets interactions; 4) The theory based on corporate control considerations. The last two theories are either still in their initial developing stages, or focused on the short-term reaction of capital structure. Therefore, the mainstream theories on capital structure can be summarized into Static Tradeoff Model and Pecking Order Theory.