Download or read book Three Essays on Empirical Corporate Finance written by Brandon Julio and published by ProQuest. This book was released on 2007 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second essay follows up on the first by investigating whether debt repurchase activity is consistent with the existence of an optimal capital structure. I find that the timing and size of debt repurchases are consistent with trade-off theories of capital structure. Specifically, the likelihood and size of debt repurchases is increasing in a firm's deviation from its estimated target. The positive abnormal returns around the announcement of repurchases are increasing in the deviation from the target debt level, consistent with an optimal capital structure.