We empirically examine the influence of risk on firms' capital structure adjustments. The process of adjustment is asymmetric and depends on the type of risk, its magnitude, the firm's actual leverage with respect to its target, and its financial status. We show that firms with financial...

This paper empirically investigates the effects of macroeconomic and firm-specific risk on firms' leverage. The analysis is carried out for a large panel of public and non-public UK manufacturing firms over the period 1999-2008. Our investigation provides evidence that UK manufacturing firms use...