Corporate Finance and Capital Structure A Theoretical Introduction

Capital structure choice is essential for an institution to maximize its value. Because the institution?s decision maker decides how to finance projects before making investment decisions, its financial decisions ultimately affect every aspect of operations thereafter. This book discusses several key theories of corporate capital structure to answer how funding structure shapes an institution?s value.

In this book, the author emphasizes the microeconomic foundations of capital structure theory. He shows how various microeconomic frameworks, such as price and game theories, principal?agent model, and mechanism design, can be applied to solve the optimal capital structure of a firm. By getting used to optimizing corporate capital structures subject to various constraints via microeconomic frameworks, readers will become capable of investigating how to finance projects in their own setups. Thus, this book not only informs readers of specific knowledge but also provides them with tools to solve new problems that they will face in their future.

This book will be a valuable resource for students of corporate finance at the postgraduate or doctoral level and will serve as the material for professional training aimed at practitioners and regulators with technical expertise.

1. Introduction; 2. Capital Structure Choice in a Frictionless World; 3. Trade-off Theory; 4. Agency Theory; 5. Security Design; 6. Asymmetric Information; 7. Continuous-Time Model; 8. Capital Structure of a Bank; Index

Kentaro Asai joined Australian National University in 2016 as an assistant professor in the College of Business and Economics. He earned his PhD, MA, and BA with Honors in economics from the University of Chicago. He has published internationally in scholarly journals and policy reports in economics and finance. He is also a former security analyst at Goldman Sachs.