Does the Value of a Bank Depend of the Structure of Its Capital?

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Does the Value of a Bank Depend of the Structure of its Capital? - Does the value of a bank depend of the structure of its capital? - Yes, the value of a bank does depend of the structure of its capital in the real world. In this paper I will discuss the capital structure theory of a firm in the first place. Then I will discuss different effects of the structure of its capital on the value of a commercial bank. A commercial bank is a bank which derives most of its profits from interest and fees from its lending activities. To clarify the matter and avoid unnecessary complication, by “commercial bank” I mean a bank which attracts funds from shareholders and debt holders and offers loans to borrowers. Commercial banks include corporate banks, retail banks, merchant banks, etc. Then I will discuss different effects of the structure of its capital on the value of an investment bank. First, I will discuss this issue from the standpoint of cost of capital, which is also common to non-financial companies. Second, I will discuss it from the standpoint of resilience to crises caused by general economic conditions and/or external to the bank economic shocks. 1. Capital Structure and Separation of Financing and Investment Decisions In their famous 1958 paper “The Cost of Capital, Corporate Finance and the Theory of Investment”, Nobel laureates Modigliani and Miller, proposed that under perfect conditions and perfectly efficient capital markets the cost of capital of a firm does not depend on the capital structure of the firm, that is the way the capital is raised. (Modigliani, 270, Berk, 432-433, Tucker, 3) Equity is more expensive source of financing than debt because it is the first to absorb losses, i.e. it is more risky from the standpoint of an investor. According to Modigliani and Miller, as a firm increases its equity financing, the share of more

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