A Century of Capital Structure: The Leveraging of Corporate America

We thank Bill Schwert (editor), Malcolm Baker, an anonymous referee; Andy Abel, Effi Benmelech, Charles Calomiris, Murray Frank, Joao Gomes, Boyan Jovanovich, Stew Myers, Ken Singleton, Ilya Strebulaev; seminar participants at Duke University, Georgetown University, Miami University, MIT, Notre Dame, the SEC, Rutgers University, Stanford University, University of Oklahoma, University of British Columbia, University of California San Diego, University of Chicago, University of Colorado, University of Illinois, University of Pennsylvania, University of Utah, Vanderbilt University, Yale University; and conference participants at the 2013 American Economics Association, ASU Winter Finance Conference, Financial Management Association, NBER, and SITE for helpful comments. We also thank many research assistants for their help gathering data. Roberts gratefully acknowledges financial support from an Aronson, Johnson and Ortiz Fellowship and Geewax-Terker Fellowship, and support from the Jacobs Levy Equity Management Center for Quantitative Financial Research. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.