"I had some of the students in my finance class actually do some empirical work on capital structures, to see if we could find any obvious patterns in the data, but we couldn't see any"

Merton Miller's quote recommends that he had his finance class conduct empirical research study on capital structures to see if any patterns might be discovered in the data. However, the results of the research showed that no patterns were visible. This might be due to the complexity of capital structures, which can differ significantly depending upon the business and the market. It could also be due to the truth that the data was not thorough enough to draw any meaningful conclusions. The quote highlights the value of carrying out empirical research in order to gain a better understanding of intricate subjects such as capital structures. It also acts as a reminder that sometimes the data might not be sufficient to draw any conclusions, and further research study might be needed.