We match large U.S. corporations’ tax returns during 1989–2001 to their
financial statements to construct a firm-level proxy of firms’ use of off-balance
sheet and hybrid debt financing. We find that firms with less favorable priorperiod
Standard & Poor’s (S&P) bond ratings or higher leverage ratios in
comparison to their industry report greater amounts of interest expense on
their tax returns than to investors and creditors on their financial statements.
These between-firm results are consistent with credit-constrained firms using
more structured financing arrangements. Our within-firm tests also suggest
that firms use more structured financing arrangements when they enter into
contractual loan agreements that provide incentives to manage debt ratings.