Methodological Variation in Empirical Corporate Finance

I document large variation in empirical methodology in corporate finance regressions in top finance journals. Although methodological variation allows for customization of empirical tests to fit specific theories, it can also enable excessive reporting of statistically significant results. For example, given discretion over 10 routine methodological decisions, a researcher could report that over 70% of randomly generated variables are statistically significant determinants of leverage at the 5% level. The methodological decisions that affect statistical significance the most are dependent variable selection, variable transformation, and outlier treatment. I discuss remedies that can mitigate the negative effects of methodological variation.

The estimation of leverage coefficients in corporate finance research: a review of the literature

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a literature review of elasticity-based techniques for the estimation of the degree of operating leverage (DOL) and the degree of financial leverage (DFL) in empirical corporate finance research. Design/methodology/approach This paper describes the specific details of the estimation of DOL and DFL coefficients under both of the primary estimation techniques and documents the econometric properties of the estimates derived from each techniques. Findings There are tradeoffs between the two techniques, as each technique has both appealing and limiting features. Originality/value This paper indicates how each of the two techniques possesses limitations and suggests that future research should attempt to develop estimation techniques that overcome those limitations.