Reliable access to funding, as in Myers and Majluf (1984), is what really matters, but there are nontrivial indeterminacies in how such access is arranged and in the debt, cash-balance, and payout components of financial policy. These inferences are from a corporate “twins” comparison study of the financial policies of Henry Ford at Ford Motor Co. and Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. at General Motors Corp. The documented testimony of Ford and Sloan indicates that both focused on funding their business, with debt as a funding tool, not an element of an optimized leverage ratio. Their financial policies differ in five important respects, including (i) the use of debt versus large cash balances to meet funding needs and (ii) a commitment to paying large dividends versus a strong aversion to payouts. The data also point to the importance of the inability of managers to identify optimal policies with reliable precision.

真正重要的是可靠获得资金，如Myers和Majluf（1984）所述，但是在如何安排这种获得方式以及财务政策的债务，现金余额和支出构成等方面存在不确定性。这些推论来自于对福特汽车公司的亨利·福特和通用汽车公司的小阿尔弗雷德·P·斯隆的财务政策的公司“双胞胎”比较研究。有据可查的福特和斯隆证词表明，两者都致力于为其公司提供资金。债务作为融资工具的业务，而不是最佳杠杆率的要素。他们的财务政策在五个重要方面有所不同，包括（i）使用债务和大量现金余额来满足资金需求，以及（ii）承诺支付大笔股息而不是强烈反对派息。