Introduction Germany currently finds itself in a difficult economic situation, one characterised not only by a long period of weak economic growth, but also by developments that, if the necessary adjustment processes are not accomplished, pose a threat to Germany's medium-term growth prospects....

This paper investigates the link between the optimal level of non-financial firms' leverage and macroeconomic uncertainty. We develop a structural model of a firm's value maximization problem that predicts that as macroeconomic uncertainty increases the firm will decrease its optimal level of...