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Journal of Corporate Finance Vol. 4 No. 1 1998

Internal financing of multinational subsidiaries: Debt vs. equity

Bhagwan Chowdhry1; Joshua D. Coval2

1 University of California, Los Angeles · 2 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

Abstract

Multinational subsidiaries are generally financed with a mixture of internal debt and equity from the parent corporation. Yet, financial theory has relatively little to say regarding the debt-equity tradeoff and the timing of dividend repatriation in an international setting. In this paper, we derive optimal rules for financing multinational subsidiaries that take into account tax rate differentials and the exploitation of tax-loss credits. We develop a formal multi-period dynamic model to characterize the optimal dividend repatriation policy and the optimal choice of debt-equity mix. The model generates several testable empirical implications that are consistent with available empirical evidence and several others that have not been either discussed or empirically tested in the literature.

DOI
10.1016/s0929-1199(97)00011-4
Volume
4
Issue
1
Pages
87-106
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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