Capital ages and must eventually be replaced. We propose a theory of financing in which firms borrow to finance investment and deleverage as capital ages to have enough financial slack to finance replacement investments. To achieve these dynamics, firms issue debt with a maturity that matches the useful life of assets and a repayment schedule that reflects the need to free up debt capacity as capital ages. In the model, leverage and debt maturity are negatively related to capital age while debt maturity and the length of debt cycles are positively related to asset life. We provide empirical evidence that strongly supports these predictions.

中文翻译：

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资产寿命、杠杆和债务期限匹配

资本老化，最终必须更换。我们提出了一种融资理论，其中企业借钱为投资提供资金，并在资本老化时进行去杠杆化，以拥有足够的财务闲置资金来为替代投资提供资金。为了实现这些动态，公司发行的债务的期限与资产的使用寿命相匹配，还款计划反映了随着资本老化而释放债务能力的需要。在模型中，杠杆率和债务期限与资本年龄负相关，而债务期限和债务周期长度与资产寿命正相关。我们提供了强有力支持这些预测的经验证据。