In: Statistics and Probability
The financial structure of a firm refers to the way
the firm’s assets are divided by equity and debt, and the financial
leverage refers to the percentage of assets financed by the debt.
In a published paper, Tai Ma of Virginia Tech claims that financial
leverage can be used to increase the rate of return on equity. To
say it is another way, stockholders can receive higher returns on
the equity with the same amount of investment by the use of
financial leverage. The following data show the rates of return on
equity using 3 different levels of financial leverage and a control
level (zero debt) for 24 randomly selected firms
Financial Leverage
Control
Low
Medium High
2.1
6.2
9.6
10.3
5.6
4.0
8.0
6.9
3.0
8.4
5.5
7.8
7.8
2.8
12.6
5.8
5.2
4.2
7.0
7.2
2.6
5.0
7.8
12.0
Compare the mean rates of return on equity at the different levels
of financial leverage. Which of them are significantly
different?