A study on the effect of cash flows on the gap between the actual leverage and optimal financial leverage ratio

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is a study on the effect of cash flows on the gap between actual and optimal financial leverage ratio companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. In this regard, we try to help with advanced econometric techniques such as partial adjustment model on panel data and Generalized method of moments to achieve a reasonable estimate of the impacts.In this paper, were analyzed the financial information related to its 101 - firms during the years 2008-2015 were available. The results show that there is a gap between optimal and actual financial leverage. This deviation from the optimal leverage at companies that are facing financial crisis, more. Also, we find that , firms with more investment and Growth opportunities, higher profitability and larger size size move with different speeds to different target levers. In general, these findings are consistent with dynamic trade-off theory.

Keywords

• Capital structure
• Capital structure Adjustment Speed
• Cash Flow
• Dynamic Trad-off Theory
• Target Leverage