Date of Award

5-2015

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Economics and Finance

Committee Chair(s)

Tyler Brough

Committee

Tyler Brough

Committee

Jason Smith

Committee

Jared DeLisle

Abstract

This paper replicates the paper named Human capital, capital structure, and employee pay: An empirical analysis written by Thomas J. Chemmanur, Yingmei Cheng, and Tianming Zhang in 2013. In this paper, I examine the effect of market leverage on labor expenses to prove the predictions of Titman (1984) and Berk, Stanton, and Zechner (2010). Through the OLS regression analysis, I find that market leverage has a significantly positive effect on total, cash, equity-based compensation of chief executive officers (CEOs). So an increase market leverage will always lead to an incremental labor cost, and in fact labor costs will limit the use of debt to some extent.

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