With zero capital structure rebalancing costs, dynamic trade-off theory predicts that firms stay at their leverage targets with more profitable firms staying at higher leverage. This prediction is rejected by the robustly negative correlation between leverage and profitability. When rebalancing costs are added to this theory, it predicts a positive leverage–profitability correlation only in periods where companies pay these costs and actively rebalance their capital structures. However, we show that the correlation is negative when firms issue debt and distribute the proceeds to shareholders—precisely the case where the theory predicts it should be positive. Our results thus resurrect the leverage–profitability puzzle.

中文翻译：

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杠杆盈利之谜复活

在资本结构再平衡成本为零的情况下，动态权衡理论预测，公司保持其杠杆目标，而利润更高的公司则保持更高的杠杆。这一预测被杠杆率和盈利能力之间的强烈负相关所拒绝。当再平衡成本被添加到这个理论中时，它只在公司支付这些成本并积极地重新平衡其资本结构的时期预测杠杆-盈利能力正相关。然而，我们表明，当公司发行债务并将收益分配给股东时，相关性为负——正是理论预测它应该为正的情况。因此，我们的结果复活了杠杆 - 盈利能力之谜。