Dodging Bullets : Changing U.S. Corporate Capital Structure in the 1980s and 1990s

A summary of the broad reshaping of US corporate finance in the 1980s and 1990s, this work looks at three major issues: why corporations leveraged up in the first place; why and how the leverage wave came to an end; and what policy lessons are to be drawn.

Using the Minsky-Kindleberger model as a framework, the authors interpret the rise and fall of leveraging as a financial market mania.

In the course of chronicling the return to equity in the 1990s, they address a number of corporate finance questions: how important was the return to equity in relieving corporations' debt burderns?; how did the return to equity affect the ability of young high-tech firms to finance themselves without selling out to foreign firms.