Informational Asymmetry Between Managers and Investors in the Optimal Capital Structure Decision

Abstract

In this article, we consider the impact of asymmetric information between managers and investors on the optimal capital structure decision. This is done within a continuous-time framework, where the relevant state variable is given by the EBIT value of the firm; an approach taken by Goldstein et al. (2001), Hackbarth et al. (2003), Dangl & Zechner (2004) amongst others. Our setup differs in that we assume the EBIT to follow an Arithmetic Brownian motion, i.e. it can assume negative values. More importantly, we extend this framework in two directions: (i) We introduce a separate management claim. (ii) We introduce asymmetric information between managers and investors by assuming that claimants receive noisy signals, which they process according to rational expectation principles. Our results show, that managers always try to avoid debt, and that their optimal bankruptcy threshold is always lower, than the threshold set by equity holders. The introduction of asymmetric information changes the optimality conditions, and consequently the capital structure decision. It is shown, that the informational asymmetry can substantially lower the optimal leverage ratio, even without assuming that managers are entrenched.