"The late 1980s saw a huge wave of corporate leveraging. The U.S. financial landscape was dominated by a series of high-stakes leveraged buyouts as firms replaced their equity with new fixed debt obligations. Cash-financed acquisitions and defensive share repurchases also decapitalized corporations. This trend culminated in the sensational debt-financed bidding for RJR-Nabisco, the largest leveraged buyout of all time, before dramatically reversing itself in the early 1990s with a rapid return to equity."--BOOK JACKET. "This entertaining summary of the broad reshaping of U.S. corporate finance in the last decade and a half looks at three major issues: why corporations leveraged up in the first place, why and how the leverage wave came to an end, and what policy lessons are to be drawn."--BOOK JACKET.