We augment the LLSV creditor rights index with a new “restructuring index” that measures the incentives provided to creditors to grant concessions outside formal bankruptcy. We study the joint impact of the two indexes on a firm's leverage policy. We show that the two indexes have at most a...

This paper finds strong support for the argument that heterogeneous adjustment costs significantly affects the speed with which a firm approaches its target capital structure. We find that firms with higher non-debt tax shields (from R&D), and cash holdings adjust faster to their target capital...