This paper reexamines the issue of the heterogeneity of the speed of capital structure adjustment in firms. In contrast to previously documented contemporaneous results, we test the issue by making a distinction between default and non-default firms and employ two measures of the speed of adjustment (cumulative versus marginal). Our empirical results show that the speed of adjustment is non-uniform across firms and over time. In particular, default firms are associated with a higher speed of adjustment than non-default firms. The completion of leverage adjustment takes multiple periods. The marginal speed of adjustment accelerates from the beginning period to the end period, which is consistent with the anchoring and adjustment bias heuristic. Our empirical results are robust to using a book/market leverage, a two-/one-step estimation approach as well as the consideration of panel length, non-financial debt, zero-leverage firms, and endogeneity.

本文重新审视了企业资本结构调整速度的异质性问题。与之前记录的同期结果相比，我们通过区分违约和非违约公司并采用两种调整速度的措施（累积与边际）来测试这个问题。我们的实证结果表明，随着时间的推移，不同公司的调整速度是不均匀的。特别是，违约公司比非违约公司具有更高的调整速度。杠杆调整的完成需要多个周期。调整的边际速度从期初到期末加速，这与锚定和调整偏差启发式一致。我们的实证结果对于使用账面/市场杠杆是稳健的，