This paper discusses the assets specificity concept and its role in Transaction Cost Theory and explores its effects on capital structure and company value. Adopting an empirical-analytical approach, the purpose is to explain how assets specificity influences the decisions and behavior of economics agents. A wide variety of earlier studies prove the existence of relevant effects derived from this factor. The hypothesis is tested that low levels of general and long-term indebtedness would be associated with firms active in markets with a higher degree of industrial concentration. Firms displaying this kind of behavior for these variables would probably have a higher degree of assets specificity. A multivariate Cluster Analysis is applied to a sample of companies from Exame Melhores e Maiores for the year 2001. Results were statistically significant, with two different clusters: companies with a higher probable degree of assets specificity, as opposed to those with a lower probable degree of assets specificity.
transaction costs; assets specificity; valuation; capital structure; industrial concentration
