The legal and institutional setting is more and more influential in firms' financial decisions. Our article analyses firms' capital structure in an international framework in order to assess the different level of debt use across countries and to identify both common and differential explanatory factors. Although the level of financial leverage is quite different, the factors that have traditionally driven capital structure decisions have much in common in all the legal and institutional settings. The performance and size of the firm, the assets tangibility and the growth opportunities have a relevant but differential effect across the different institutional systems. Consequently, our results suggest that the legal and institutional system of each country does not only affect firms' capital structure but also creates the conditions to explain a differential effect of the common determinants of firms' financial choices.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Article provided by Taylor and Francis Journals in its journal Applied Economics.