Financement des entreprises
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Journal of Economic Perspectives- Volume 2, Number 4 -Fall 1988- Pages 121 -126
Why Financial Structure Matters
Joseph E. Stiglitz
he 1958 paper by Franco Modigliani and Merton Miller has been justly hailed as a landmark in the modern theory of finance. What has not been sufficiently emphasized is the importance of the paper to the development of economic theory and practice. Indeed, it is ironic that a paper which purportedly established that one need not pay any attention to financial structure-that financial structure was irrelevant-should have focused economists' attention on finance. Merton Miller gives what must be part of the explanation in his preceding paper in